Enhanced stimulated Raman scattering in silicon nanocrystals embedded in silicon-rich nitride/silicon superlattice structures

In the last years, the possibility of light generation and/or amplification in silicon, based on Raman emission, has achieved great results. However, some significant limitations, inherent to the physics of stimulated Raman emission in bulk silicon, have been pointed out, too. It is well known that a way to enhance the nonlinearities of materials is of artificially ‘shrinking’ the electrons in regions much shorter than their natural delocalization length in the bulk. On this line of argument in this paper stimulated Raman scattering is, for the first time, experimentally demonstrated in high-density silicon nanocrystals embedded in a silicon nitride host matrix [1] [1]L. Sirleto, M. A. Ferrara, I. Rendina, S.N. Basu, J. Warga, R. Li, L. Dal Negro, Enhanced stimulated Raman scattering in silicon nanocrystals embedded in silicon-rich nitride/silicon superlattice structures Applied Physics Letters, 93, 251104 (2008)