Fabrication and characterization of amorphous silicon microcavities

Abstract

In this thesis, planar amorphous silicon microcavities were fabricated and characterized at room temperature. Microcavities were realized by embedding the active amorphous silicon layer between distributed Bragg reflectors, which are composed of alternating silicon oxide and silicon nitride layers. All of the layers were grown by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition on silicon substrates. By tuning the cavity mode to emission maximum of amorphous silicon, a narrow and enhanced emission line is obtained. Device characterization was done by means of photoluminescence, and reflectance measurements. The experimental results compare favorably with the theoretical calculations performed by transfer matrix method.