Continuous wave laser for tailoring the photoluminescence of silicon nanoparticles produced by laser ablation in liquid

Silicon nanoparticles (SiNPs) are attracting attention for applications in various fields, from energy storage to bio-imaging. One of their main advantages is good photoluminescence (PL) properties combined with the relatively high bio-compatibility. Here, we fabricated SiNPs by the laser ablation of silicon single crystal in de-ionized water, employing simultaneously the picosecond pulse laser (150 ps, 1064 nm, 7 mJ/pulse) and a continuous wave (CW) laser (532 nm, 270 mW). TEM analysis (bright field TEM, HRTEM, HAADF, EDS) clearly shows that the introduction of the CW laser significantly increases the crystallinity of the produced nanoparticles, which may be crucial for many optical and electronic applications. The obtained SiNPs exhibit good blue photoluminescence properties, and the introduction of the CW laser into the fabrication process leads to the considerable increases in the photoluminescence. Additionally, we conducted a detailed analysis on the aging-time dependence and the excitation wavelength-dependent PL. The results indicate that the blue photoluminescence may be ascribed to quantum confinement effect, interface related states, and defect in the O-containing layer (shell) of the nanoparticles. We demonstrate that the relative share of these mechanisms in overall PL is significantly affected by the introduction of the CW laser to the pulse laser ablation and it may improve the applicability of the Si nanoparticles produced to a wide variety of fields.