Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2011
Photoluminescence (PL) properties from anodically oxidized porous silicon (PS) have been investigated. Large temperature coefficients (-0.5 meV/K) of PL peak energy are observed for relatively strongly oxidized PS specimens which show saturation of PL peak blue shift upon further anodic oxidation. Time-resolved PL data show that the PL decay is characteristic of thermal activation process with an energy of 9-27 meV at low temperatures between 80 and 180 K. Those results can be explained using a luminescence model which assumes several PL centers in the energy gap and considers thermally activated and tunneling processes.