The low quantum efficiency of silicon (Si) has been a long-standing challenge for scientists. Although improvement of quantum efficiency has been achieved in porous Si or Si quantum dots, highly efficient Si-based light sources prepared by using the current fabrication technooloy of Si chips are still being pursued. Here, we proposed a strategy, which exploits the intrinsic excitation of carriers at high temperatures, to modify the carrier dynamics in Si nanoparticles. We designed a Si/SiO₂ cuboid supporting a quasi-bound state in the continuum (quasi-BIC) and demonstrated the injection of dense electron-hole plasma via two-photon-induced absorption by resonantly exciting the quasi-BIC with femtosecond laser pulses. We observed a significant improvement in quantum efficiency by six orders of magnitude to ~13%, which is manifested in the ultra-bright hot electron luminescence emitted from the Si/SiO₂ cuboid. We revealed that femtosecond laser light with transverse electric polarization (i.e., the electric field perpendicular to the length of a Si/SiO₂ cuboid) is more efficient for generating hot electron luminescence in Si/SiO₂ cuboids as compared with that of transverse magnetic polarization (i.e., the magnetic field perpendicular to the length of a Si/SiO₂ cuboid). Our findings pave the way for realizing on-chip nanoscale Si light sources for photonic integrated circuits and open a new avenue for manipulating the luminescence properties of semiconductors with indirect bandgaps.

High-voltage thin-film transistors (HV-TFTs) based on amorphous InGaZnO (a-IGZO) are demonstrated to work in the range of kilo-voltage (kV). The devices feature a high breakdown voltage of over 1.1 kV, on-current of 10.8 μA, and an on/off current ratio over 105. By integrating kV-TFTs with ZnO nanowires, actively controlled field emitters are obtained that exhibit extremely small current fluctuation in the emission current (2.4 % for 3600s). The operating mechanisms of the HV-TFTs are investigated by in-situ measurement of channel potentials and simple equations are derived to describe the current–voltage relations. This study demonstrates the feasibility of using a-IGZO in HV-TFTs that drive large-area field-emitter arrays and provide general understanding and design rules for HV-TFTs designed to drive nanowire field emitters.