PHOTOLUMINESCENCE OF HIGHLY ER-DOPED SILICA FILMS AND ER-DOPED GALLIUM-ARSENIDE

Photoluminescence of highly Er-doped silicate glass films prepared by sputter deposition and Er-doped GaAs films grown by metal-organic chem ical vapor deposition (MOCVD) was investigated. Er-doped silica glass films show a strong, room-temperature luminescence at 1.54 mum wavelen gth, corresponding to the I-1(1 3/2) --> I-4(1 5/2) transition of Er3 (4f), with a fluorescence decay lifetime in the range of 2 ms. Oxygen was found to play an important role in forming optically active erbiu m ions. The non-radiative Auger-type process in Er-doped GaAs was esti mated to be nearly five times that of the energy transfer process from bound excitons to the Er'' ions, which subsequently resulted in the E r-related light emission. Temperature-induced quenching of the emissio n was found to be dominated by transitions with an activation energy o f 74 meV.