Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Correspondence
  • Published:

Light emission from strained germanium

Nature Photonics volume 7, page 162 (2013)Cite this article

Subjects

Access through your institution
Buy or subscribe

To the editor

We propose an explanation for the observed photoluminescence enhancement recently reported in Nature Photonics by Jain et al.1 in suspended germanium-on-insulator membranes. Based on the generalized Planck radiation law, we show that the experimental results can be accounted for by the high-temperature thermal emission of the suspended membranes. The approach described by Jain et al. describes a microelectromechanical system technology for enhancing light emission in germanium by employing tensile strain. An abrupt increase of photoluminescence was observed with a threshold power of around 10 mW. Power law exponent values for the increase in luminescence intensity versus incident power of around 7 were measured. The authors provide a model of the membranes' optical properties that predicts a superlinearity factor of 2.4 but fails to account for the experimentally observed values of around 7.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Access through your institution

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Experimental photoluminescence data at 1,550 nm reported in Fig. 3 of ref. 1 (squares) compared with emission modelling (solid line) for a 1% uniaxially strained germanium membrane following the generalized Planck law.

References

  1. Jain, J. R. et al. Nature Photon. 6, 398–405 (2012).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut d'Electronique Fondamentale, CNRS - Univ. Paris-Sud 11, Bâtiment 220, Orsay, 91405, France

    P. Boucaud, M. El Kurdi, S. Sauvage, M. de Kersauson, A. Ghrib & X. Checoury

Authors
  1. P. Boucaud
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  2. M. El Kurdi
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  3. S. Sauvage
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  4. M. de Kersauson
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  5. A. Ghrib
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  6. X. Checoury
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to P. Boucaud.

Supplementary information

Supplementary information

Supplementary information (PDF 1396 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Boucaud, P., Kurdi, M., Sauvage, S. et al. Light emission from strained germanium. Nature Photon 7, 162 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2013.12

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2013.12

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing