Enhancing electroluminescence from metal-oxide–silicon tunneling diodes by nano-structures of oxide grown by liquid-phase method

Significant enhancement of electroluminescence (EL) at Si bandgap energy is discovered from metal-oxide–semiconductor tunneling diode on p-type Si with oxide grown by liquid-phase deposition (LPD). The LPD grown oxide has nano-structures with the grain size of 10–20 nm. The nano-structure of oxide causes the simultaneous localization of electrons and holes at the Si/SiO2 interface, similar to the formation of excitons. This makes the process of the phonon-assisted radiative recombination of electron–hole pair more like two-particle collision than three-particle collision, so increasing the probability of radiative recombination. The measured EL efficiency could be more than 1×10−6.