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The reflectance combined with photoluminescence (PL) and Raman spectroscopy are a very sensitive tool for probing silicon nanocrystals (Si-ncs) characterization. Indeed, the structure of a thin film SiNx (x=0.12) containing Si-ncs in terms of composition, Si-ncs size distribution and defects is studied. The elastic and inelastic light scattering by the silicon nanocrystals (Si-nc) embedded in amorphous silicon nitride matrix are also investigated in this work. Results shows that the PL spectrum can be deconvoluted into several peaks attributed to the quantum confinement effect, the surface effect and the photocarriers recombinaision between band tail states in the amorphous matrix. The PL peak broadening is attributed to the Rayleigh scattering and the PL peaks positions are affected by the Raman scattering.  Here we offer also a new approach to describe the coordination of the silicon surface atoms. From a parameter called the ratio of surface bonding contribution in Raman red shifts, we demonstrated that the silicon surface atoms are hyper coordinated under a sp3d2 hybridization.