Auger de-excitation of the 1.54 μm emission of Er- and O-implanted silicon

Abstract

This paper describes the Auger de-excitation of the Er 3+-related 1.54 μm luminescence of Er and O coimplanted silicon. Time response of the Er-related 1.54 μm emission to 0.3 ns wide light pulses of the 337 nm N 2 laser line is measured under CW illumination of the Ar ion laser 488 nm line. O coimplantation is found to produce new Si:Er–O luminescence centers which illuminate at the same wavelength as Si:Er, but with a much shorter fluorescence lifetime. The time response of the Si:Er–O luminescence is found to be very sensitive to the Ar 488 nm CW illumination. Both the intensity and the fluorescence lifetime decrease rapidly with increase of the CW light intensity. The Auger coefficient of Er–O centers obtained is about ten times larger with respect to Si:Er.