Enhancing defect-related photoluminescence by hot implantation into SiO₂ layers

Visible photoluminescence around an orange band of 580 nm wavelength are observed from 300 nm thin SiO₂ layers implanted by Si or Ge ions at both substrate temperatures of 25°C [room temperature (RT)] and 400°C (hot). Si implantations at an energy of 30 keV were performed with doses of 5 × 10¹⁵, 3 × 10¹⁶, and 1 × 10¹⁷ cm^-2 while Ge implantations were done at 100 keV with a dose of 5 × 10¹⁵ cm^-2. Samples implanted at 400°C always show much higher intensities of luminescence than those implanted at room temperature. Electron spin resonance signals of the hot-implanted samples indicate relatively smaller amounts of nonradiative defects than those of RT-implanted samples. It is concluded that the hot-implantation effectively enhances the intensity of defect-related photoluminescence by reducing the density of the nonradiative defects and introducing the radiative defects, which contribute to the luminescence in SiO₂ layers.