Electronic computing speeds are brushing up against limits imposed by the laws of physics. Photonic computing, where photons replace comparatively slow electrons in representing information, could surpass those limitations, but the components of such computers require semiconductors that can emit light.
Now, research from the University of Pennsylvania has enabled "bulk" silicon to emit broad-spectrum, visible light for the first time, opening the possibility of using the element in devices that have both electronic and photonic components.
Certain semiconductors, when imparted with energy, in turn emit light; they directly produce photons, instead of producing heat. This phenomenon is commonplace and used in light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, which are ubiquitous in traffic signals, new types of light bulbs, computer displays and other electronic and optoelectronic devices. Getting the desired photonic properties often means finding the right semiconducting material. Agarwal’s group produced the first ever all-optical switch out of cadmium sulfide nanowires, for example.
Semiconducting materials — especially silicon — form the backbone of modern electronics and computing, but, unfortunately, silicon is an especially poor emitter of light. It belongs to a group of semiconducting materials, which turns added energy into heat. This makes integrating electronic and photonic circuits a challenge; materials with desirable photonic properties, such as cadmium sulfide, tend to have poor electrical properties and vice versa and are not compatible with silicon-based electronic devices.
With silicon entrenched as the material of choice for the electronics industry, augmenting its optical properties so it could be integrated into photonic circuitry would make consumer-level applications of the technology more feasible.
To get elemental, “bulk” silicon to emit light, the team drew upon previous research they had conducted on plasmonic cavities. In that earlier work, the researchers wrapped a cadmium sulfide nanowire first in a layer of silicon dioxide, essentially glass, and then in a layer of silver. The silver coating supports what are known as surface plasmons, waves that are a combination of oscillating metal electrons and of light. These surface plasmons are highly confined to the surface where the silicon dioxide and silver layers meet. For certain nanowire sizes, the silver coating creates pockets of resonance and hence highly confined electromagnetic fields — in other words, light — within the nanostructure.
Normally, after excitation the semiconductor must first “cool down,” releasing energy as heat, before “jumping” back to the ground state and finally releasing the remaining energy as light. The Penn team’s semiconductor nanowires coupled with plasmonic nanocavities, however, can jump directly from a high-energy excited state to the ground state, all but eliminating the heat-releasing cool-down period. This ultra-fast emission time opens the possibility of producing light from semiconductors such as silicon that might otherwise only produce heat.
“If we can make the carriers recombine immediately,” one of the researchers said, “then we can produce light in silicon.”
This story is reprinted from material from the University of Pennsylvania, with editorial changes made by Materials Today. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of Elsevier. Link to original source.