Erbium-doped planar waveguides with atomic layer deposition method

Abstract

In this work the feasibility of the atomic layer deposition (ALD) in producing erbium-doped waveguides is studied. Two microns thick erbium-doped aluminum oxide layers were grown with ALD on silica-coated silicon wafers. The waveguides were patterned using photolithography and wet etching. Resulted single-mode ridge-type waveguides were measured to obtain absorption, emission, fluorescence lifetime, and gain characteristics. Optical pumping was done using the 980 nm wavelength. The material showed broad emission spectrum with FWHM of 52 nm and maximum absorption of 6.2 dB/cm at 1530 nm. Maximum signal enhancement of 2.6 dB/cm was measured at 1530 nm for the 20 dBm signal power.