Quantitative evaluation of boron-induced disorder in multilayers containing silicon nanocrystals in an oxide matrix designed for photovoltaic applications.

The effect of doping by boron on optical properties of multilayers containing Si-NCs were studied by means of photoluminescence (PL), time-resolved PL, photoluminescence excitation (PLE), transmission and reflection measurements. It was found that PL decay is strongly non-single exponential and can be described by means of Laplace transform of log-normal decay rates distribution. It was also proposed that changes observed in the distribution central moments reflect the disorder induced by boron-doping.