Electrical pump & probe and injected carrier losses quantification in Er doped Si slot waveguides

Electrically driven Er3+ doped Si slot waveguides emitting at 1530 nm are demonstrated. Two different Er3+ doped active layers were fabricated in the slot region: a pure SiO2 and a Si-rich oxide. Pulsed polarization driving of the waveguides was used to characterize the time response of the electroluminescence (EL) and of the signal probe transmission in 1 mm long waveguides. Injected carrier absorption losses modulate the EL signal and, since the carrier lifetime is much smaller than that of Er3+ ions, a sharp EL peak was observed when the polarization was switched off. A time-resolved electrical pump & probe measurement in combination with lock-in amplifier techniques allowed to quantify the injected carrier absorption losses. We found an extinction ratio of 6 dB, passive propagation losses of about 4 dB/mm, and a spectral bandwidth > 25 nm at an effective d.c. power consumption of 120 μW. All these performances suggest the usage of these devices as electro-optical modulators.

Visible emission from Er-doped SnO2 thin films deposited by sol-gel

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Electro-optical properties of Er-doped SnO2 thin films

Photoconductivity of SnO2 sol-gel films is excited, at low temperature, by using a 266 nm line-fourth harmonic-of a Nd:YAG laser. This line has above bandgap energy and promotes generation of electron-hole pairs, which recombines with oxygen adsorbed at grain boundary. The conductivity increases up to 40 times. After removing the illumination on an undoped SnO2 film, the conductivity remains unchanged, as long as the temperature is kept constant. Adsorbed oxygen ions recombine with photogenerated holes and are continuously evacuated from the system, leaving a net concentration of free electrons into the material, responsible for the increase in the conductivity. For Er doped SnO2, the excitation of conductivity by the laser line has similar behavior, however after removing illumination, the conductivity decreases with exponential-like decay. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Er-doped silica-based waveguides prepared by different techniques: RF-sputtering, sol-gel and ion-exchange

Erbium-activated silica-based planar waveguides were prepared by three different technological routes: RF-sputtering, sol-gel and ion exchange. Various parameters of preparation were varied in order to optimize the waveguides for operation in the NIR region. Particular attention was devoted to the minimization of the losses and the increase of the luminescence efficiency of the metastable I-4(13/2) state of the Er3+ ion. Waveguide properties were determined by m-line spectroscopy and loss measurements. Waveguide Raman and luminescence spectroscopy were used to obtain information about the structure of the prepared films and about the dynamical processes related to the luminescence of the Er3+ ions.

Decay of photo-excited conductivity of Er-doped SnO2 thin films

Er-doped SnO2 thin films, obtained by sol-gel-dip-coating technique, were submitted to excitation with the 4th harmonic of a Nd:YAG laser (266 nm), at low temperature, and a conductivity decay is observed when the illumination is removed. This decay is modeled by considering a thermally activated cross section of an Er-related trapping center. Besides, grain boundary scattering is considered as dominant for electronic mobility. X-ray diffraction data show a characteristic profile of nanoscopic crystallite material (grain average size approximate to 5 nm) in agreement with this model. Temperature dependent and concentration dependent decays are measured and the capture barrier is evaluated from the model, yielding 100 meV for SnO2:0.1% Er and 148 meV for SnO2:4% Er.

Poole-Frenkel effect in Er doped SnO2 thin films deposited by sol-gel-dip-coating

Electrical properties of Er-doped SnO2 thin films obtained by sol-gel-dip-coating technique were measured. When compared to undoped tin dioxide, rare-earth doped films present much higher resistivity, indicating that Er3+ presents an acceptor-like character into the matrix, which leads to a high degree of electric charge compensation. Current-voltage characteristics, measured above room temperature for Er-doped films, lead to non-linear behavior and two conduction regimes. In the lower electric field range the conduction is dominated by Schottky emission over the grain boundary potential barrier, which presents an average value of 0.85 eV. Increasing the applied bias, a second regime of conduction is observed, since the Poole-Frenkel coulombic barrier lowering becomes a significant effect. The obtained activation energy for ionization is 0.67 eV. (C) 2005 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Sol-gel Er-doped SiO(2)-HfO(2) planar waveguides: A viable system for 1.5 mu m application

70SiO(2)-30HfO(2) planar waveguides, doped with Er(3+) concentrations ranging from 0.3 to 1 mol %, were prepared by sol-gel route, using dip-coating deposition on silica glass substrates. The waveguides show high densification degree, effective intermingling of the two components of the film, and uniform surface morphology. Propagation losses of about 1 dB/cm were measured at 632.8 nm. When pumped with 987 or 514.5 nm continuous-wave laser light, the waveguides show the (4)I(13/2)-->(4)I(15/2) emission band with a bandwidth of 48 nm. The spectral features are found independent both on erbium content and excitation wavelength. The (4)I(13/2) level decay curves presented a single-exponential profile, with a lifetime between 2.9 and 5.0 ms, depending on the erbium concentration. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics.

Electron trapping of laser-induced carriers in Er-doped SnO2 thin films

In order to investigate optically excited electronic transport in Er-doped SnO2, thin films are excited with the fourth harmonic of an Nd:YAG laser (266nm) at low temperature, yielding conductivity decay when the illumination is removed. Inspection of these electrical characteristics aims knowledge for electroluminescent devices operation. Based on a proposed model where trapping defects present thermally activated cross section, the capture barrier is evaluated as 140, 108, 100 and 148 meV for doped SnO2, thin films with 0.0, 0.05, 0. 10 and 4.0 at% of Er, respectively. The undoped film has vacancy levels as dominating, whereas for doped films. there are two distinct trapping centers: Er3+ substitutional at Sn lattice sites and Er3+ located at grain boundary. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Investigation on the structural properties in Er-doped PbTiO3 compounds: A correlation between experimental and theoretical results

The aim of this work is to investigate the structural properties of the (Pb1-xErx)TiO3 (PET) powders, with x varying from 0.01 to 0.08, prepared by the polymeric precursor method. Combined X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy and ab initio calculation reveal a diffuse phase-transition of a tetragonal to a cubic phase. The crystalline models built allowed to calculate electronic properties and to analyze the behavior of the doping element in the structure of the material, which are consistent with the experimental results that indicate the beginning of phase-transition from tetragonal to cubic. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Nanoparticle characterization of Er-doped SnO2 pellets obtained with different pH of colloidal suspension

SnO2:2 at. %Er xerogel samples were obtained by sol-gel technique from colloidal suspensions with distinct pHs. The evaluation of critical regions inside the nanocrystallite is fundamental for the interpretation of the influence of pH on the emission data. In this way, the nanocrystal depletion layer thickness was obtained with the help of photoluminescence, Raman, X-ray diffraction, and field-emission gun scanning electron microscopy measurements. It was observed that acid suspensions (pH < 7) lead to high surface disorder in which a larger number of cross-linked bonds Sn-O-Sn among nanoparticles are present. For these samples, the nanoparticle depletion layer is larger as compared to samples obtained from other pH. Photoluminescence measurement in the near infrared region indicates that the emission intensity of the transition 4I13/2 → 4I15/2 is also influenced by the pH of the starting colloidal suspension, generating peaks more or less broadened, depending on location of Er3+ ions in the SnO2 lattice (high or low symmetry sites). © 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.

Improved electrical transport in lightly Er-doped sol-gel spin-coating SnO2 thin films, processed by photolithography

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Stable dual-wavelength oscillation of an Er-doped fiber ring laser at room temperature

We propose a simple Er-doped fiber laser configuration for achieving stable dual-wavelength oscillation at room temperature, in which a high birefringence fiber Bragg grating was used as the wavelength-selective component. Stable dual-wavelength oscillation at room temperature with a wavelength spacing of 0.23 nm and mutually orthogonal polarization stages was achieved by utilizing the polarization hole-burning effect. An amplitude variation of less than 0.7 dB over an 80 s period was obtained for both wavelengths.

Multi-kilowatt peak power nanosecond Er-doped fiber laser

We report a two-stage diode-pumped Er-doped fiber amplifier operating at the wavelength of 1550 nm at the repetition rate of 10-100 kHz with an average output power of up to 10 W. The first stage comprising Er-doped fiber was core-pumped at the wavelength of 1480 nm, whereas the second stage comprising double-clad Er/Yb-doped fiber was clad-pumped at the wavelength of 975 nm. The estimated peak power for the 0.4-nm full-width at half-maximum laser emission at the wavelength of 1550 nm exceeded 4-kW level. The initial 100-ns seed diode laser pulse was compressed to 3.5 ns as a result of the 34-dB total amplification. The observed 30-fold efficient pulse compression reveals a promising new nonlinear optical technique for the generation of high power short pulses for applications in eye-safe ranging and micromachining.