Optical emission from erbium-doped silica nanowires

Journal Article · Thu May 15 04:00:00 EDT 2008 · Journal of Applied Physics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.2924420· OSTI ID:21137273

Elliman, R G; Wilkinson, A R; Kim, T -H ^[1]; Sekhar, P K; Bhansali, S ^[2]

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1. Department of Electronic Materials Engineering, Australian National University, Canberra ACT0200 (Australia)
2. Nanomaterials and Nanomanufacturing Research Center, Department of Electrical Engineering, University of South Florida, 4202 E. Fowler Ave., Tampa, Florida 33620 (United States)

Infrared optical emission from erbium-doped silica nanowires is shown to have property characteristic of the material nanostructure and to provide the basis for the fabrication of integrated photonic devices and biosensors. Silica nanowires of approximately 150 nm diameter were grown on a silicon wafer by metal-induced growth using a thin (20 nm) sputter-deposited palladium layer as a catalyst. The resulting wires were then ion implanted with 110 keV ErO{sup -} ions and annealed at 900 deg. C to optically activate the erbium. These wires exhibited photoluminescence emission at 1.54 {mu}m, characteristic of the {sup 4}I{sub 15/2}-{sup 4}I{sub 13/2} transition in erbium; however, comparison to similarly implanted fused silica layers revealed stronger thermal quenching and longer luminescence lifetimes in the nanowire samples. The former is attributed to an increase in defect-induced quenching partly due to the large surface-volume ratio of the nanowires, while the latter is attributed to a reduction in the optical density of states associated with the nanostructure morphology. Details of this behavior are discussed together with the implications for potential device applications.

• OSTI ID: 21137273
• Journal Information: Journal of Applied Physics, Journal Name: Journal of Applied Physics Journal Issue: 10 Vol. 103; ISSN JAPIAU; ISSN 0021-8979
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
ANNEALING
CRYSTAL GROWTH
DEPOSITION
DOPED MATERIALS
ERBIUM
ION IMPLANTATION
LAYERS
LIFETIME
MORPHOLOGY
OPACITY
PALLADIUM
PHOTOLUMINESCENCE
QUANTUM WIRES
QUENCHING
SILICA
SILICON
SILICON COMPOUNDS
SPUTTERING