Optical doping of waveguide materials by MeV Er implantation

Abstract

Implantation of MeV erbium ions into micron-thick silica and phosphosilicate glass films and 1200-Å-thick Si3N4 films is studied with the aim of incorporating the rare-earth dopant on an optically active site in the network. Implantation energies and fluences range from 500 keV to 3.5 MeV and 3.8×1015 to 9.0×1016 ions/cm2. After proper thermal annealing, all implanted films show an intense and sharply peaked photoluminescence spectrum centered around λ = 1.54 μm. The fluorescence lifetime ranges from 6 to 15 ms for the silica-based glasses, depending on annealing treatment and Er concentration. Silicon nitride films show lower lifetimes, in the range <0.2–7 ms. Annealing characteristics of all materials are interpreted in terms of annealing of ion-induced network defects. These defects are identified using photoluminescence spectroscopy at 4.2 K. Concentration quenching, diffusion and precipitation behavior of Er is also studied.