Photoluminescence measurements of zero-phonon optical transitions in silicon nanocrystals

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Optical transitions in silicon nanocrystals with different surface passivations were probed at low temperatures on a single-particle level. A type of quasidirect recombination process, different from the quantum-confined exciton transition, is identified. The luminescence spectra have different emission energies, but the contribution of a no-phonon transition is significantly higher than expected from the quantum-confinement model. Its relative strength was found to be temperature dependent, suggesting spatial localization of excitons as a possible origin.