OVERVIEW OF SILICON-BASED MATERIALS

A comprehensive review, including some recent results, of the structur es, properties and fabrication methods of inorganic and organic silico n-based materials with backbone dimensions from 0 to 3 is presented. Q uantum effects in low-dimensional silicon structures are discussed usi ng organosilicon materials, such as polyhedral compounds and oligosila nes (quantum dots), polysilanes (quantum wires), heterocopolymers (one -dimensional superlattices), and polysilynes (quantum planes). The lum inous properties of silicon-based materials are also summarized.