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Fabrication and characterization of optical planar waveguides activated by erbium ions for 1.5-μm applications

2004; SPIE; Volume: 5451; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1117/12.549920

1996-756X

Alessandro Chiasera, Maurizio Ferrari, L. Zampedri, M. Mattarelli, Maurizio Montagna, Hervé Portalès, C. Tosello, Sandra Dirè, S. Pelli, Giancarlo C. Righini,

Photorefractive and Nonlinear Optics

Recent results obtained for SiO 2 -HfO 2 : Er 3+ and SiO 2 -TiO 2 : Er 3+ -Yb 3+ waveguides are presented. (100-x)SiO 2 -xHfO 2 (x = 10, 20, 30, 40 mol) planar waveguides, doped with 0.01 and 0.3 mol % Er 3+ ions were prepared by sol-gel route, using dip-coating deposition on v-SiO 2 substrates. The waveguides were characterized by m-line, Raman and photoluminescence spectroscopy. The spectral shape of the band assigned to the 4 I 13/2 -> 4 I 15/2 transition does not change practically with the hafnium and erbium content. The 4 I 13/2 level decay curves present a single-exponential profile, with a lifetime between 5.5 and 7.1 ms, for the 0.3 mol% doped samples, and between 8.5 and 6.6 ms for the 0.01 mol% doped samples. The SiO 2 -TiO 2 : Er 3+ -Yb 3+ waveguides were prepared by rf-sputtering technique. All waveguides were single-mode at 1550 nm. The losses, for the TE0 mode, were evaluated at 632.8 and 1300 nm and an attenuation coefficient equal or lower than 0.2 dB/cm was measured both at 632.8 nm and 1300 nm. The emission of 4 I 13/2 -> 4 I 15/2 of Er 3+ ion transition was observed upon excitation in the TE0 mode at 981 and 514.5 nm. Back energy transfer from Er 3+ to Yb 3+ was demonstrated by measurement of Yb 3+ emission upon Er 3+ excitation at 514.5 nm. Photoluminescence excitation spectroscopy was used to obtain information about the effective excitation efficiency of Er 3+ ions by co-doping with Yb 3+ ions.