Bright Visible Light Extraction from Amorphous Silicon Nitride Heterojunction Pin Diode

We report the transformation of an ordinary hydrogenated amorphous silicon nitride based heterojunction pin diode into a strong visible light emitting electroluminescent device. This forming process (FP) comprises Joule heating induced crystallization during the application of sufficiently high forward bias to the fresh diode. FP starts at an arbitrary point and continues until the accompa-nying visible light is uniformly emitted from the whole diode. This remarkable phenomenon is presented by real-time photography of the lateral propagation of the formed region. Finally, both the role of window electrode for a successful FP and the lumines-cence mechanism after FP are briefly discussed