Regular dislocation networks formed by direct bonding of Si wafers actively participated in recombination of minority carriers. Besides non-radiative recombination, dislocation-related luminescence, i.e. radiative recombination could be observed. It was shown that the type of recombination was defined by the type of dislocations and the structure of the network. Screw dislocations were mainly dislocation-related luminescence active, while non-radiative recombination was mostly related to edge dislocations. Moreover, the dislocation-related luminescence intensity strongly depended upon the misalignment angle between the crystal orientations of both bonded wafers. There existed an optimal alignment between bonded Si wafers, for which the dislocation-related luminescence intensity had a maximum. Such alignment could be used for dislocation based all-Si light emitting devices in the future on-chip optical communication components.

Structures Responsible for Radiative and Non-Radiative Recombination Activity of Dislocations in Silicon. T.Mchedlidze, T.Arguirov, O.Kononchuk, M.Trushin, M.Kittler: Physica Status Solidi C, 2011, 8[3], 991–5