Hydrogenated amorphous silicon nitride based photonic light emitting devices

Abstract

We have observed visible photoluninescence from hydrogenated amorphous silicon nitride (a-SiNx:H) as well as the enhancement and inhibition of this photoluninescence in a microcavity formed with metallic mirrors. The a-SSJx:H was grown both with and without ammonia. The photoluminescence of the a-SSNx:H grown without ammonia is red. The photoluminescence of the a-SiNx:H grown with ammonia is blue-green. In this paper, we report on the enhancement and inhibition of the photoluminescence from a half wavelength thick dielectric a-SiNx:H microcavity. The distributed Bragg reflector mirrors were fabricated using alternating pairs of quarter wavelength thick silicon oxide and silicon nitride. The photoluminescence is enhanced by at least an order of magnitude at the dielectric a-SiNx:H microcavity resonance at 710 nn. The minimum resonance linewidth is 6 nn, which corresponds to a quality factor of 118. The maximum rejection bandwidth is 150 nm. The enhancement and inhibition of the photoluminescence is understood by the modified photon density of states of the dielectric microcavity. The linewidth of the photoluminescence is also narrowed with respect to the linewidth of the bulk a-SiNx:H, again due to the presence of the electromagnetic modes of the dielectric microcavity. The resonance enhancement and inhibition of the photoluminescence in a-SiNx:H opens up a variety of possibilities for optoelectronic applications such as color flat panel displays or active resonant cavity enhanced devices for wavelength division multiplexing.