Photoluminescence of erbium doped microcrystalline silicon thin films produced ...

• Author(s): Cerqueira, M. F. ; Stepikhova, M. ; Ferreira, J. A.
• Date: 2001
• Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/1822/14173
• Origin: RepositóriUM - Universidade do Minho
• Subject(s): Photoluminescence; Erbium; Nanocrystalline silicon
• Document Type: Article
• Language: English

Description

Microcrystalline silicon thin films doped with erbium were produced by RF sputtering and their structural, chemical and optical properties were studied by X-ray diffractometry at grazing incidence, Rutherford back scattering and optical transmission spectroscopy. The samples exhibit a sharp photoluminescence (PL) spectrum from the Er centres with the strongest peak positioned at 1.536 microm with a full width at half maximum of about 8 nm. When the temperature varies between 5K and 300K the photoluminescence decreases only five fold, in contrast to the behaviour reported for monocrystalline silicon.