Electrical, electronic and optical characterisation of ion beam synthesised β-FeSi2 light emitting devices

β-FeSi2/Si light emitting devices (LEDs) have been attracting great interest since the first successful demonstration of an ion beam synthesised (IBS) device operating at a wavelength of 1.5 μm. We report here on a study of the electrical, electronic and optical properties of devices produced by Fe implantation into epitaxial silicon layers. The devices have been characterised by current-voltage (I-V), capacitance-voltage (C-V), deep level transient spectroscopy (DLTS) and electroluminescence (EL) measurements. DLTS showed the presence of a majority carrier trapping centre, with an activation energy of 200 ± 25 meV. Room temperature EL was observed from β-FeSi2/Si LEDs. Preliminary analysis of the EL results suggests its quench ratio depends on device structure; the quenching is thought to be related to surface recombination.