Luminescence properties of Er implanted p-type and n-type 3C SiC/Si

Abstract

In order to investigate the luminescence properties of Er 3+ in 3C silicon carbide (SiC), erbium (Er) ions were implanted into n- and p-type 3C SiC on Si and characterized by photoluminescence (PL) measurements. We found that the optimum annealing temperature was 1350°C. We consider that the decrease in PL intensity at 1400°C is caused by melting of Si substrate due to annealing at temperatures near the melting point (1428°C) of Si. From the temperature dependence of n- and p-type 3C SiC:Er/Si, we found a novel difference in the thermal quenching properties between the two types. This may be due to the difference in the recombination time for the process from a host material to excite the Er 3+-4f shell. We found that p-type SiC:Er was superior to the n-type one in terms of temperature quenching of the Er 3+-related emission at 1.54 μm.