Erbium doped silicon single- and multilayer structures for light-emitting device and laser applications
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Tom Gregorkievicz and Nguyen Q. Vinh Van der Waals–Zeeman Institute, University of Amsterdam, Valckenierstraat 65, NL-1018 XE Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Wolfgang Jantsch Institute of Semiconductor and Solid State Physics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, A-4040 Linz-Auhof, Austria
Hanka Przybylinska Institute of Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Al. Lotników 32/46, PL-02 668 Warszawa, Poland
Victor Yu. Timoshenko and Denis M. Zhigunov Moscow State University, Physics Faculty, 119992 Moscow, Russia (Received 28 September 2005; accepted 12 December 2005)
The paper is a brief retrospective review of our contribution to the Si:Er problem in the last decade. It contains a description of the experimental facilities, results of the light-emitting media (Si:Er and Si1−xGex:Er) research, and device applications.
I. INTRODUCTION
The idea to use silicon as the host matrix for electrical and optical excitation of Er3+ ions embedded into it1,2 proved rather fruitful in terms of solving the problems involved in silicon optoelectronics. The use of silicon as an intermediate medium transferring the excitation induced by the current or optical pumping to Er3+ ions has allowed a substantial increase of the excitation cross section (up to 3 × 10−15 cm2),3 i.e., by 5–6 orders as compared with direct optical excitation of Er3+ embedded into a dielectric matrix (8 × 10−21 cm2).4 The progress in the development of Si:Er-based lightemitting devices with a higher power yield and quantum efficiency is associated with the improvement of the optically active media (increase of optically active Er3+ concentration, formation of optically active Er-containing complexes with higher excitation cross-section, and minimization of Er3+ nonradiative relaxation processes) and optimization of the light-emitting device design. In this contribution, we focus on both approaches:
a)
Address all correspondence to this author. e-mail: [email protected] This paper was selected as the Outstanding Meeting Paper for the 2005 MRS Spring Meeting Symposium V Proceedings, Vol. 866. DOI: 10.1557/JMR.2006.0083 574
J. Mater. Res., Vol. 21, No. 3, Mar 2006 http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 16 Jan 2016
(i) We report a new optically active Er-containing complex radiating at 1.54 m, a novel mechanism of subband-gap photo-excitation of erbium in silicon. (ii) We show possibilities for enhancing the power yield of electroluminescent light emitting devices (LEDs) including LEDs radiating at room temperature at reverse and forward bias of the p-n junction. We also demonstrate a novel long-term optical memory effect on the basis of Si:Er light emitting structure with the active Si:Er layer placed within the depletion region and discuss the perspectives and progress in the development of laser-type structures on Si:Er basis. (iii) We describe an original sublimation variant of the molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) technique (SMBE) and demonstrate its capabilities for realizing light-emitting devices effectively radiating up to room temperature.
II. STRUCT
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