Recent Progress in On-Chip Erbium-Based Light Sources (original) (raw)
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Erbium silicate compound optical waveguide amplifier and laser [Invited]
Optical Materials Express, 2018
In the process of information technology, as Moore's law becomes more and more close to the limit, the consensus to combine microelectronics and optoelectronics to develop silicon-based large-scale optoelectronic integration technology is inevitable. As the most important part of silicon photonic devices, a silicon-based light source still attracted great effort. In the traditional research, erbium-doped materials have played an important role in silicon-based light sources. Recent studies demonstrated that the erbium silicate compound had a high net gain attributable to a high erbium concentration that has no insolubility problem. This paper focuses on the theory, designs, simulations, preparation methods, process and device optimizations of the erbium silicate compound optical waveguide amplifier and laser. The erbium silicate compound materials with large optical gains can serve as potential candidates for future silicon-based scale-integrated light-source applications.
Erbium in Si-based light confining structures
Materials Science and Engineering: B, 2001
Erbium can provide the Silicon with optoelectronic capabilities. Er:Si has a very sharp emission line at 1.54 mm. The main limitation of Erbium is its low emission efficiency at room temperature. In this work, we show that microcavities can modify the optical properties of the Erbium. Two different mechanisms for modifying the optical properties of the Er ions were studied, one in which the collection of light is optimized. In this case, an enhancement of the photoluminescence by a factor of 1000 was obtained. The second mechanism that was studied is a strong photon-Erbium interaction. In this case, we show evidence for mixing of optical properties of Erbium and photons indicating that properties such as lifetime and energy levels can be changed externally.
Erbium doped silicon as an optoelectronic semiconductor material
1994
In this thesis, the materials aspects of erbium-doped silicon (Si:Er) are studied to maximize Si:Er luminescence intensity and to improve Si:Er performance as an optoelectronic semiconductor material. Studies of erbium (Er) and silicon (Si) reactivity, erbium diffusion and solubility in silicon, Si:Er heat treatment processing with oxygen and fluorine co-implantation and the mechanism of Si:Er light emission have been carried out to define optimum processing conditions and to understand the nature of optically active centers in Si:Er. In the erbium and silicon reactivity studies, a ternary phase diagram of Er-Si-O was determined. ErSi 2 _x(X = .3) was found to be the most stable erbium silicide formed on single crystal silicon, and it could be oxidized in the presence of oxygen (02). These findings confirm the results that erbium precipitates as ErSi2_(x = .3) in silicon and erbium clusters with oxygen to form complexes in Si:Er with oxygen co-implantation. Luminescence studies on various erbium compounds established a unique spectrum for Si:Er, which can be used to fingerprint products of Si:Er processing. The diffusivity and solubility of Er in Si are determined based on the analysis of changes in implanted Er SIMS profiles of Si:Er after high temperature annealing (1150-1300 0 C). Er is a slow diffuser with moderate solubility in Si. The diffusivity of Er in Si D(Er) is 5 x 10-11 cm 2 /s at 1200°C with a migration energy of-4.6eV, at a rate similar to Ge in Si. The equilibrium solid solubility of Er in Si [Er], is , 10 1 l 6 atoms/cm 3 between 1150-1300 0 C, similar to S in Si. The low Er diffusivity in Si enables metastable concentrations of Er to be incorporated into Si at levels far exceeding the equilibrium solid solubility of 10 16 atoms/cm 3. Furthermore, the low diffusivity and high oxidation tendency make Si:Er process compatible with existing Si fablines, since cross contamination during heat treatment is minimized. Post-implantation annealing and ligand enhancement are essential to achieve luminescence in Si:Er. The heat treatment process of Si:Er and the impact of oxygen (O) and fluorine (F) ligands have been studied. The Si:Er heat treatment process is determined by three internal processes in Si:Er: (1) implantation damage anneal; (2) I would like to thank my advisor Professor L.C. Kimerling for his insights and guidance on directing my thesis research and as a personal role model for hardworking and effective communication. I feel very fortunate to have been his first Ph.D student at MIT. I would also like to thank other members of my thesis committee Professors Tuller and Bawendi for their advise and support. I am indebted to Dr. Jurgen Michel for many discussions about the project. His friendship and his help on photoluminescence measurements were most appreciated. I am also grateful to Visiting Professor Hajime Kitagawa from Fukuoka Institute of Technology, Japan, who worked with me at the early stage of this project when we were setting up the lab. A special thank to Professor Scott Dunham at Boston University, who had helped me to start on the Si:Er process simulation and generously provide free access to the PEPPER and PROFILE software. I want to acknowledge Dr. Dale Jacobson and Dr. John Poate at AT&T Bell Laboratory for supplying the implanted materials. Many other people at MIT had helped me throughout the course of this thesis research. In particular, I want to thank John Martin at the MIT Surface Analytical Lab, who helped me in performing SIMS measurements. I would also like to acknowledge the past and present members of our Silicon Microphotonics research group
Photoluminescence excitation spectroscopy of erbium in epitaxially grown Si:Er structures
Optical Materials, 2005
Excitation of erbium photoluminescence in Si:Er epitaxial structures has been studied within a broad pump wavelength range (k ex = 780-1500 nm). In all the investigated structures considerable signal of the 1.5 lm erbium photoluminescence has been observed at pump photon energies well below the silicon band-gap value (k ex > 1060 nm) where seemingly no exciton generation occurs. Possible mechanism of erbium ion excitation in silicon without participation of excitons is discussed.
Erbium in crystal silicon: Optical activation, excitation, and concentration limits
Journal of Applied Physics, 1995
The optical activation, excitation, and concentration limits of erbium in crystal Si are studied. Preamorphized surface layers of Czochralski-grown (Cz) Si(100), containing 1.7×1018 O/cm3, were implanted with 250 keV Er at fluences in the range 8×1011–8×1014 cm−2. After thermal solid-phase epitaxy of the Er-doped amorphous layers at 600 °C, Er is trapped in the crystal at concentrations ranging from 3×1016 to 7×1019 Er/cm3, as measured by secondary-ion-mass spectrometry. Photoluminescence spectra taken at 77 K show the characteristic Er3+ intra-4f luminescence at 1.54 μm. Photoluminescence excitation spectroscopy shows that Er is excited through a photocarrier-mediated process. Rapid thermal annealing at 1000 °C for 15 s increases the luminescence intensity, mainly due to an increase in minority-carrier lifetime, which enhances the excitation efficiency. Luminescent Er forms clusters with oxygen: the maximum Er concentration that can be optically activated is determined by the O con...
Electroluminescence efficiencies of erbium in silicon-based hosts
Applied Physics Letters, 2013
We report on room-temperature 1.5 lm electroluminescence from trivalent erbium (Er 3þ ) ions embedded in three different CMOS-compatible silicon-based hosts: SiO 2 , Si 3 N 4 , and SiN x . We show that although the insertion of either nitrogen or excess silicon helps enhance electrical conduction and reduce the onset voltage for electroluminescence, it drastically decreases the external quantum efficiency of Er 3þ ions from 2% in SiO 2 to 0.001% and 0.0004% in SiN x and Si 3 N 4 , respectively. Furthermore, we present strong evidence that hot carrier injection is significantly more efficient than defect-assisted conduction for the electrical excitation of Er 3þ ions. These results suggest strategies to optimize the engineering of on-chip electrically excited silicon-based nanophotonic light sources. V C 2013 AIP Publishing LLC. [http://dx.
Progress on erbium-doped waveguide components
… , 1997.'Linking to …, 1997
The recent development on erbium-doped fiber amplifiers, and fiber lasers is reviewed. Also the latest results on planar erbium-doped waveguide amplifiers and high erbium concentration characterisation methods are presented. Introduction: Only few technolo$es have had a more profound impact on-the development of optical communication systems than the erbium-doped fiber amplifer (EDFA), and since the first demonstration of a practical EDFA in 1987 [ 11, the EDFA has due to a huge international research and development effort become the key element in optical communication systems. Several text books have been published on the subject [2-51 in the past few years, and the basic properties of rare-earth-doped (RED) waveguide devices are thoroughly described i n these, but because of a tremendous development of EDFA applications, new system related challenges continue to appear. It is the aim of this presentation to provide an overview of the most recent progress on the development of erbium-doped waveguides (i.e., fibers and planar integrated RED waveguides). Special focus is on the system application aspects of the EDFA, and in relation to this, we have also chosen to discuss some of the latest research results within the areas of fiber lasers, integrated planar erbium-doped devices, and characterisation of high concentration erbium-doped waveguides. Fiber amplifiers in optical communication systems: It has for decades been understood that optical communication systems offer a very large transmission bandwidth, and in the process of bringing this potential to practical use, the EDFAs play an increasingly important role. This is reflected in the fact that most commercial communication systems installed today include one or more EDFAs, and the amplifiers are key elements both in future digital optical networks (in contrast to the point-to-point transmission systems), and in amplitude-modulated (AM) frequency division multiplexed W M) systems for video transmission. Most of the recent high capacity experiments, however, employ wavelength division multiplexing (WDM). techniques, which in addition to obvious capacity improvement offer higher flexibility of future optical communication networks. Figure 1 illustrates the increase in transmission capacity for long distance optical communication systems by showing the bitrate-distance product as a function of publication year for the transmission experiment. It is obvious, how the inclusion of EDFAs has resulted in a capacity increase of more than two orders of magnitude over a period of less than 10 years.
Electrical and Optical Properties of Erbium in MBE Silicon and Si/Ge Alloys
MRS Proceedings, 1991
ABSTRACTThis paper reports the incorporation of erbium into MBE Si and Si/Ge alloys with substrate temperatures of 500°C and 700°C. Using a solid source MBE system, concentrations of erbium between 1018 and 1022 cm−3 have been studied by photoluminescence, electrical measurements, SIMS and TEM. We find no shallow donors or acceptors attributable to erbium but we observe a high concentration of deep states with an activation energy of ∼360 meV. The photoluminescence output is of greatest magnitude when [Er] =2 × 1018 cm−3. Above this concentration the onset of erbium precipitates can just be observed using TEM and at even higher concentrations structured growths of erbium suicide are apparent. The effect on the optical activity of Si:Er that has subsequently been implanted with oxygen is also reported.
Materials Science and Engineering: B, 2000
It is well-known that the sharp luminescence emission at 1.54 mm from erbium-doped silicon has set off a great interest for this material in view of its applications in the third window of optical telecommunications. It is also known that the erbium luminescence is very poor in the absence of impurities like oxygen, carbon and nitrogen, but in spite of the large amount of research work devoted to this material, it is not yet completely clear what is the local structure of the optically active Er centre in oxygen-doped Er-Si alloys. The aim of this paper is to present and discuss the results of the analysis of the EXAFS spectra of two sets of Er-doped silicon samples, of which one was obtained by erbium and oxygen co-implantation and the other was grown by LPE (liquid phase epitaxy). The EXAFS spectra of these samples were satisfactorily fitted by assuming that Er sits in three different configurations, depending on the presence or the absence of oxygen and dislocations in the epi-layer. The relevance of these results in terms of optical and electrical activity of erbium is discussed in details.