Temperature-dependent photoluminescence from CdS/Si nanoheterojunctions

CdS/Si nanoheterojunctions have been fabricated by growing nanocrystal CdS (nc-CdS) on the silicon nanoporous pillar array (Si-NPA) through using a chemical bath deposition method. The nanoheterojunctions have been constructed by three layers: the upper layer being a nc-CdS thin films, the intermediate layer being the interface region including nc-CdS and nanocrystal silicon (nc-Si), and the bottom layer being nc-Si layer grown on sc-Si substrate. The room temperature and temperature-dependent photoluminescence (PL) have been measured and analyzed to provide some useful information of defect states. Utilizing the Gauss–Newton fitting method, five emission peaks from the temperature-dependent PL spectra can be determined. From the high energy to low energy, these five peaks are ascribed to the some luminescence centers which are formed by the oxygen-related deficiency centers in the silicon oxide layer of Si-NPA, the band gap emission of nc-CdS, the transition from the interstitial cadmium (I Cd ) to the valence band, the recombination from I Cd to cadmium vacancies (V Cd ), and from sulfur vacancies (V s ) to the valence band, respectively. Understanding of the defect states in the CdS/Si nanoheterojunctions is very meaningful for the performance of devices based on CdS/Si nanoheterojunctions.