Erbium in SiOx environment:: ways to improve the 1.54 μm emission

The only way to obtain room temperature electroluminescence at 1.54mum from Si diodes due to intra-atomic transitions of erbium is the excitation of SiO2: Er clusters by hot electron injected in a reverse biased diode. Impact excitation of erbium and thus electroluminescence can be achieved in tunnelling diodes, although at very small excitation volume, which would cover only a small fraction of a wave guide. Making use of an avalanche process allows one to increase the excitation volume considerably. This requires accurate control of doping gradients and thus knowledge of the electrical activity and the distribution of the implanted dopants. We present data from SIMS and Hall effect investigations, which demonstrate significant deviations from TRIM simulations of the implantation profiles and the hitherto assumed electrical activity of Er in such environment. We present optimum parameters for design and realisation of diodes working at room temperature. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.