Rare-earth Doped Amorphous Silicon Microdisk and Microstadium Resonators with Emission at 1550nm

TL;DR

This paper reports on the fabrication and optimization of erbium-doped amorphous silicon microresonators that emit at 1550 nm, demonstrating high-quality modes and potential for amorphous silicon microcavity lasers.

Contribution

It introduces a method to create high-quality erbium-doped amorphous silicon microresonators with optimized annealing for efficient 1550 nm emission.

Findings

Achieved large emission at 1550 nm with high erbium concentration.

Evidence of high-quality resonator modes via near-field microscopy.

Potential for developing amorphous silicon microcavity lasers.

Abstract

Microdisks and microstadium resonators were fabricated on erbium doped amorphous hydrogenated silicon (a-Si:H<Er>) layers sandwiched in air and native SiO2 on Si substrates. Annealing condition is optimized to allow large emission at 1550 nm for samples with erbium concentrations as high as 1.02x10^20 atoms/cm3. Near field scanning optical microscopy shows evidences of the simultaneous presence of bow-tie and diamond scars. These modes indicate the high quality of the resonators and the potentiality for achieving amorphous silicon microcavity lasers.