Effects of natural oxidation on the photoluminescence properties of Si nanocrystals prepared by pulsed laser ablation

In this work, Si nanocrystals (Si-NCs) have been prepared by pulsed laser ablation technique in dichloromethane, and the microstructure and photoluminescence (PL) properties of the Si-NCs before and after natural oxidation were investigated. Transmission electron microscopy and Raman results show that the average diameter of the Si-NCs is 2.42 nm in the dichloromethane solution. Blue–violet PL with a lifetime of 4.6 ns is observed at room temperature, and the PL peak shifts toward longer wavelength with the red shift of excitation wavelength. The PL excitation spectrum indicates that the bandgap of the Si-NCs in solution is 2.64 eV, which confirms that the blue–violet PL originates from interband transition of Si-NCs caused by quantum confinement effect. The PL peak red shifts to 607 nm after natural oxidation, and the peak lifetime of which is slow down to 13.1 μs. The fixed PL peak excited by different wavelengths and the slow PL decay time indicate that interface defects become the main PL mechanism after natural oxidation. The results will add new information for understanding the PL mechanism of Si-NCs in different environments.