Ultraviolet photoluminescence from $3C-SiC$ nanorods

An intensive sharp photoluminescence at $3.3eV$ is observed from single-crystal $3C-SiC$ nanorods. Structural characterization reveals that the nanorods contain a fairly large amount of threefold stacking faults. We tentatively attribute the emission to these stalking faults, which structurally resemble $6H-SiC$ nano-layers of $1.5nm$ embedded in a $3C-SiC$ matrix. The emission mechanism is discussed in terms of spontaneous polarization at the stacking faults.