Light emission during direct and Fowler-Nordheim tunneling in ultra thin MOS tunnel junctions

Light emission from silicon/silicon dioxide/metal tunnel junctions is shown to cover a wide wavelength range from to infrared into the near-ultraviolet. The energy of the emitted light increases with increasing junction bias. This behavior appears to be consistent with calculations for light emission from direct conduction to conduction band transition of the hot electrons after tunneling into the silicon.