Dr. Homewood and his group have been trying to coax light out of silicon for about nine years.
"People forever having been trying to get light out of silicon, but they've only been able to get minuscule amounts," said Mr. Lepselter, who holds 55 patents and is a former director of the semiconductor division at AT&T/Bell Labs.
From these results, we can conclude that gold nanoparticles moderately enhance the light absorptance of silicon nanofiber.
For the sake of simplicity, let us first consider an extreme type of stratification, namely, a two-layer system, in which initially a lighter layer of silicon floats over another heavier water layer).
So how does it feel to be a "grey entrepreneur" blinking in the light of Silicon Roundabout?
This high absorptance mainly comes from the multiple reflection of light among silicon nanocone arrays, increasing the light path and the capture ratio of photon.
"This is a major advance toward getting better light emission out of silicon," said Dr. David A. B. Miller, a Stanford University professor who is an expert in optoelectronics.
"For 20 years there has been an intense search for how we could make a light source out of silicon," Professor Fauchet said.
Traditional image sensors are silicon-based, and InVisage notes that its QuantumFilm is able to absorb the same amount of light as silicon, but in a layer that is ten times thinner and made specifically to absorb the full spectrum of light, allowing for more efficient and complete processing.
Meanwhile, the past decade has seen the light-processing power of silicon sensors become truly awesome.
In this paper, the light-trapping performance of silicon inclined nanohole arrays is systematically studied.
