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Excimer VUV formation of erbium‐doped silica layers
Author(s) -
Yu J. J.,
Boyd I. W.
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
physica status solidi (a)
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.532
H-Index - 104
eISSN - 1862-6319
pISSN - 1862-6300
DOI - 10.1002/pssa.200510035
Subject(s) - luminescence , erbium , materials science , doping , crystallite , irradiation , quenching (fluorescence) , excimer , analytical chemistry (journal) , photochemistry , chemistry , fluorescence , optoelectronics , optics , physics , chromatography , nuclear physics , metallurgy
Abstract Erbium‐doped silica sol–gel layers with post‐process excimer VUV irradiation at a low temperature of 400 °C have exhibited a strong room temperature Er luminescence at ∼1.53 µm. The VUV irradiation has led to the formation of Er oxides in the silica matrix while significantly reducing nonradiative decay channels associated with the OH groups in the sol–gel layers. High‐resolution transmission electron micros‐copy results revealed the formation of Er 2 O 3 crystallites in the silica layers. The Er–O coordination and crystallisation altered the chemical environment of the Er ions in the silica while possibly reducing the quenching effect of the Er–Er cross‐relaxation, resulting in the strong Er luminescence emitted. Moreover, the low temperature VUV process would not produce the luminescence background offset which was found to be present in all the luminescence spectra of the silica layers processed thermally at 900 °C. (© 2005 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)