Photoluminescence of a tensilely strained silicon quantum well on a relaxed SiGe buffer layer

We have investigated the photoluminescence of tensilely strained silicon layers grown on relaxed SiGe buffer layers. At low excitation densities, the photoluminescence is dominated by the radiative recombinations associated with the dislocations in the buffer layer and the band-edge luminescence of the relaxed SiGe layers. We show that the photoluminescence of a strained silicon quantum well capped by a relaxed SiGe layer can be observed at high excitation densities. The resonance energy of this photoluminescence, observed around 960meV for the phonon-assisted transition, is in satisfying agreement with the calculated value of the bandgap of the type II strained heterostructure.