Optical properties of thin nanosilicon films

Abstract Present paper is devoted to the investigation of the nanosilicon films internal structure effect on optical properties. Atomic force microscopy results reveal that the films with different thickness have fundamentally different grain size distribution (samples with the film thickness less than 50 nm have single-mode grain size distribution, while samples with the film thickness more than 50 nm have multi-mode distribution of grain size). The correlation between grain size of nanosilicon films, photoluminescence and scattering indicatrix was shown. Well-isolated vibronic structures were observed on the ultraviolet–visible photoluminescence spectrum from nanosilicon films with the thickness more than 10 nm. The photoluminescence spectra in the red range correlate with the nanosilicon grain size distribution due to the effect of the quantum confinement. However, due to the complex shape of the grains mathematical modeling of photoluminescence spectrum is complicated. Both scattering indicatrix and photoluminescence reveal the multi-mode grain size distribution of the films with thickness more than 50 nm. The comparative analysis of theoretical results of optical radiation scattering by nanosilicon films with experimental ones is illustrated. Mathematical modeling of the scattering indicatrix shows the correlation of average grain size from scattering and photoluminescence data.