OPTICAL DOPING OF WAVE-GUIDE MATERIALS BY MEV ER IMPLANTATION

Implantation of MeV erbium ions into micron-thick silica and phosphosilicate glass films and 1200-angstrom-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 X 10(15) to 9.0 X 10(16) ions/cm2. After proper thermal annealing, all implanted films show an intense and sharply peaked photoluminescence spectrum centered around lambda = 1.54-mu-m. The fluorescence lifetime ranges from 6 to 15 ms for the silicabased 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.