As a third-generation wide band semiconductor, SiC nanostructures recently take an important position in the fields of high-temperature, high-voltage and powerful electronic and optoelectronic devices and biomedical engineering because of their novel physical-chemical properties.
By using soft X-ray magnetic circular dichroism station in Hefei Synchrotron Radiation Facility, the researchers from National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures and Department of Physics, Nanjing University, have made a series of advancements on the composite 3C-SiC Nanocrystals and SiC-water system researches.
Through bonding the glycerol to the modified surfaces of 3C-SiC films, the group prepared for the first time SiC with strong and tunable violet to blue-green (360-540 nm) emission. X-ray absorption fine structure measurements performed on the soft X-ray magnetic circular dichroism station in Hefei Synchrotron Radiation Facility was used to investigate the bonding between the glycerol and SiC surface. The Si L3,2-, and O K-edge X-ray absorption spectra of the glycerol-absorbed nancrystal film depicted the atomic figure of surface Si-OH bonding replaced by OR component, indicating that the Si-terminated NC surfaces are completely bonded to glycerol molecules, revealing the mechanism of tunable, broad and stable violet to blue-green emission. These glycerol-bonded 3C-SiC nanocrystal film prevents the formation of non-radiative defects and surface states which hampers tunable blue light emission in cubic silicon carbide, and are relevant to modern optoelectronic devices, especially full-color displays. The results have been published on the top journal in nano science: Nano Letters [Nano Letters 10, 1466 (2010)], and has been selected as the research highlight on Nature Photonics [Nature Photonics 4, 265 (2010)].

 Fig . (a) PL spectra of 3C-SiC NCs/PS ;(b) Light-emitting photos from the fabricated 3C-SiC under excitation by five different wavelengths