Dual reactor deposition of quantum confined nanocrystalline silicon

A dual plasma reactor has been developed for depositing nanocrystalline silicon with quantum confined silicon nanoparticles, either by sequential or concurrent deposition of amorphous silicon and silicon nanoparticles. Sequential deposition allows for complete decoupling of the amorphous and nanoparticle deposition and well-defined layers of silicon nanoparticles between amorphous silicon. The concurrent deposition is similar to conventional deposition of nanocrystalline silicon, which allows for complete mixing of the silicon nanoparticles and amorphous silicon. With the introduction of the silicon nanoparticles into the amorphous silicon, we observe a quenching of the photoluminescence, which has been reported in the literature to be from the transfer of charge from the amorphous silicon to silicon crystallites.