Fabrication and characterization of sol-gel planar waveguides doped with rare-earth ions

Abstract

Silica-titania sol-gel planar waveguides were deposited on silica glass disks by spin coating. Fluorescence lifetimes as high as 375 μs were measured in neodymium-doped sol-gel planar waveguides and 1.78 ms for an erbium-doped film. Quenching was found to occur for the former at concentrations above 1 at. % of neodymium.