Design and Development of Silicon Heterostructures for Electronics and Photonics

Dear Colleagues,

Silicon is the main semiconductor used in the microelectronics industry, but this material possesses an indirect energy bandgap, which is the main limitation for its application in photonics or optoelectronics areas. This problem promoted the investigation of obtaining optically active materials on silicon. The literature has provided suggestions to overcome this issue by using pure Si. These studies use porous Silicon, Si, nanoparticles embedded into SiO₂ matrix by ion implantation, Si clusters embedded into SiO₂, and active impurities such as erbium to achieve efficient luminescence in Si, deposition or growth of metallic oxides, organic or inorganic semiconductors, superconductors, and more. All of these investigations have created heterostructures with potential applications in electronics, photonics, and optoelectronics areas, such as sensors, solar cells with better efficiencies, photodetectors, emitters, and more. For this reason, silicon heterostructures in combination with all these materials provide new opportunities for different applications in various areas of science and technology.

We are pleased to invite you to contribute to the Special Issue, titled “Design and Development of Silicon Heterostructures for Electronics and Photonics”, that will appear in the Crystals journal (ISSN 2073-4352)

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following: semiconductors, magnetic systems, superconductors, graphene, photonic crystals, ferroelectric crystals, optical crystals, including nonlinear and laser crystals, periodic metamaterials, metals, salts, liquid crystals, biomolecules, small organic molecules, cocrystals, and mesocrystals. Characterization techniques, such as X-ray diffraction, photoluminescence, electroluminescence, electron microscopy and diffraction, neutron diffraction, free electron lasers, scanning probe microscopy, carrier transport, magnetic property measurements, Rutherford backscattering, ellipsometry, AFM/PFM, Infrared and Raman spectroscopy, property characterizations, including, but not limited to, optical, magnetic, electronic, etc., thermoanalytical techniques, including, but not limited to, DSC, TGA, DVS, and TRPXRD. Fundamental research into surface structure, structure of the materials, morphology of the materials, interface between the materials, and special applications in the electronic, photonic, or optoelectronic areas are welcome.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Abel Garzón Román
Dr. Carlos Zúñiga Islas
Dr. Sergio Alberto Gamboa Sánchez
Prof. Dr. María Eugenia Rabanal Jiménez
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Crystals is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2100 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.