Fabrication of a silicon based electroluminescent device

In this paper we present a fabrication process for an electroluminescent device based on silicon nanopillars. The pillars were obtained by means of self-organized gold–chromium mask and reactive ion etching of silicon. Mask properties that influence pillar size distribution can be simply changed by means of thickness of metal layers. The electroluminescent device was made with the help of PMMA (polymethyl methacrylate) layer used for the structure planarization and semitransparent gold layer as electrode. Stable strong electroluminescence in visual and near IR range was observed. This effect was attributed to Si nanocrystallites and ‘hot’ electrons.