Nano-Porous MOSLEDs With Spatially Confined Si Quantum Dots Buried in Anodic Aluminum Oxide Membrane

By using nano-porous anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) membrane to spatially confine the size of silicon quantum dots (Si-QDs) embedded in silicon oxide (SiO
_x
) during synthesis, the Si-QD-doped Si-rich SiO
_x
metal-oxide-semiconductor light-emitting diode (MOSLED) is fabricated within the AAO membrane, which demonstrates the morphologically manipulated wavelength tenability and external quantum efficiency. With the use of AAO as the host membrane for the SiO
_x
:Si-QD, the Si-QDs in Si-rich SiO
_x
can effectively confine their size within 2.1 ± 0.3 nm, which contributes to the peak photoluminescent (PL) wavelength blue shifted to 550 nm with corresponding PL linewidth of 215 nm. The fabricated SiO
_x
:Si-QD based MOSLED with AAO host membrane exhibits turn-on voltage, electroluminescence power, and P-I slope of 275 V, 544 nW, and 0.598 mW/A, respectively. In addition, the nano-porous AAO host membrane further decreases the barrier at ITO/SiO
_x
interface of the SiO
_x
:Si-QD based MOSLED, which essentially enhances the probability of the carrier injection in the MOSLED so as to promote its external quantum efficiency to 2.7 × 10
^-2
%.