Rare-earth-ion-doped materials provide many opportunities for on-chip amplifiers and light sources, which are important to silicon photonics. Here, we report an erbium-doped waveguide amplifier using atomic layer deposition. Method optimization yields erbium-doped Al2O3 films with excellent optical properties, which are showcased by the high-performance photoresist-erbium-doped Al2O3 hybrid amplifiers. We demonstrate signal enhancements (SE) of 30.4 dB and 16 dB at 1531.6 nm and 1550 nm in a 3.55-cm-long amplifier, respectively, corresponding to net gains of 8.4 dB and 5 dB. Furthermore, SE and gain increase with waveguide length under sufficient pumping, suggesting the potential for achieving greater gains for longer erbium-doped waveguide amplifiers. This work represents an important step towards high-gain rare-earth-ion-doped amplifiers and the integration of active devices on silicon platforms.
We demonstrate an erbium-doped aluminum oxide waveguide amplifier with broadband net gain. The atomic layer deposition technique is used to grow the Er3+:Al2O3. The layer-by-layer deposition allows to tailor the vertical distribution of erbium ions, by which we can change the concentration of erbium ions and prevent the clustering. We characterize the Er3+:Al2O3 film using spectroscopic ellipsometry, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and photoluminescence measurements. Afterwards, on-chip Er3+:Al2O3 waveguide amplifiers are fabricated. Signal enhancements of 9.6 ± 0.8 dB and 3.5 ± 0.2 dB are achieved at 1532 nm and 1550 nm, respectively, corresponding to a net gain of 4.6 ± 0.4 dB at 1532 nm. We also measure net gain at different signal wavelengths and obtain net gain from 1525 nm to 1580 nm, covering the whole C-band.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.