Ultraviolet photoluminescence from 3C-SiC nanorods

An intensive sharp photoluminescence at 3.3eV is observed from single-crystal 3C-SiC nanorods. Structural characterization reveals that the nanorods contain a fairly large amount of threefold stacking faults. We tentatively attribute the emission to these stalking faults, which structurally resemble 6H-SiC nano-layers of 1.5nm embedded in a 3C-SiC matrix. The emission mechanism is discussed in terms of spontaneous polarization at the stacking faults.