Soft landing of silicon nanocrystals in plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition

Plasma-generated silicon nanocrystals have been selectively trapped on a cooled substrate to yield nanocrystalline films. We here present experimental evidence that the contribution of positively charged nanocrystals largely dominates the film deposition. As a direct application, we illustrate how the use of a simple substrate bias voltage allows us to "toggle switch" between 100% nanocrystalline and 100% amorphous layers. Moreover, we demonstrate that the applied bias voltage can be used to "tune" the photoluminescence of the nanocrystals between 630 and 730 nm.