Photon absorption and emission properties of 7 Å SiC nanoclusters: Electronic gap, surface state, and quantum size effect
- Department of Physics and Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Advanced Metallic Materials, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189 (China)
People know little experimentally about the physical properties of the SiC nanoclusters with sizes of a couple of angstroms. Herein, we study the electronic structure and light absorption/emission properties of the SiC nanoclusters with an average diameter of 7 Å that are fabricated by diminishing the sizes of the SiC microcrystals under high pressure and high temperature. The results reveal that the SiC nanoclusters have an indirect energy gap of 5.1 eV. Unlike the case of larger SiC nanocrystals, the luminescence of the SiC nanoclusters is dominated by two types of oxygen-related surface defects, and the maximum of their photoluminescence/photoluminescence excitation spectrum lies at 4.1/3.3 and 3.8/3.0 eV, respectively. The energy gap of the SiC nanoparticles with reference to bulk value is found to be inversely proportional to the diameter to the power 0.97, which shows slower increase of energy gap with decreasing size than what is predicted by using the first-principles calculations.
- OSTI ID:
- 22590634
- Journal Information:
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 109, Issue 1; Other Information: (c) 2016 Author(s); Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0003-6951
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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