QLEDs with Si nanoparticles

Optoelectronics is all around our daily life e.g. in optical fiber communication, displays, laser pointers, or simply light emitting diodes (LEDs). Organic LEDs are established for many years now while recently, quantum dot LED technology is entering the market. However, many QLEDs use toxic compounds such as cadmium or lead. At the same time, Silicon is the working horse in electronic chip fabrication, but it is barely known that silicon can be used for optoelectronics as well. By shrinking Silicon to nano size, its starts to show photoluminescence. At this point, can silicon nanocrystals (SiNCs) be the material of choice for optoelectronic devices? One of our missions: to engineer devices based on SiNCs to get a non-toxic alternative to today’s QLEDs.