Photon generation in forward-biased silicon p-n junctions

Photons are generated by forward biasing a silicon p-n junction at 10
^-5
∼ 10
^-4
quantum efficiency through radiative recombination. At large distances from the forward-biased junction, leakage currents of magnitudes significant for some VLSI circuits can appear due to the substrate minority carriers generated by the photons. The effective decay length of the measured leakage current is about several hundred to one thousand micrometers. The effects of forward biasing an input node or a parasitic lateral bipolar transistor are, therefore, longer ranged than commonly assumed.