Optical properties of confined Si structures

The optical properties of bulk silicon are deeply modified if the material is manipulated at the nanometre scale. In particular the growth of Si nanos tructures constitutes today a promising approach for the development of sil icon-based light emitting devices. In this context I discuss theoretical re sults on the optoelectronic properties of low-dimensional silicon structure s, e.g. Si quantum wells, quantum wires, quantum dots. The results are comp ared with recent experimental data.