Plasma Synthesized Silicon-Nitride Nano-Structures and Quantum-Dots

For a long time, silicon has been the backbone of electronics and photovoltaic industries. However, silicon technology does not allow an easy integration with the optical component since silicon is a poor light emitter. The discovery of light emission in nanostructured silicon in the 1990s opened up new avenues of research. Silicon nitride is a promising alternative for enclosing nano-sized silicon compared to higher band gap silicon oxide. In this book, inductively coupled plasma processed thin films of silicon nitride, containing nanocrystalline Si quantum dots (nc-Si-QDs), has been described. Various spectroscopic and microscopic characterizations have been performed in order to establish a correlation among the structural, compositional, optical, and electrical properties of the highly optimized silicon¿nitrogen¿hydrogen complex network. It demonstrates wide range tunable photoluminescence along with exciting optical and electrical properties, promising for the fabrication of photovoltaic and optoelectronic devices. This book should be useful to the researchers who are engaged in cutting-edge research in material physics and device fabrication, using plasma nanotechnology.