Emission enhancement of SiC/SiO2 core/shell nanowires induced by the oxide shell

In this work we report the enhancement of the 3C-SiC band edge luminescence induced by the SiO2 shell in a SiC/SiO2 core/shell nanowires (NWs) system. We demonstrate that the shell enhances the SiC near band edge luminescence and we argue the formation of a type-I quantum well between the SiC core and the SiO2 shell, with the consequent injection of carriers from the larger band-gap shell to the narrower band-gap core.