Abstract

The radiative decay of excitons bound to isoelectronic impurities is an important physical process in crystalline semiconductors. This is particularly true in indirect band gap materials such as silicon and gallium phosphide in which the k-con-servation selection rule forbids the immediate band-to-band radiative recombination of electrons and holes. Isoelectronic bound exciton (IBE) emission from GaP was first identified in 1963,¹ but IBE emission from silicon was identified for the first time only as recently as 1979.² We report in this paper the observation and characterization of photoluminescence from sulfur-doped silicon that we tentatively identify as IBE. The emission occurs near the 1.32-μm wavelength and is a maximum near the temperature T = 80 K. We present the results of measurements of the lifetime, temperature dependence, and external efficiency.

© 1986 Optical Society of America