Active Er3+ doped lead-niobium-germanate planar waveguides produced by pulsed laser deposition

Abstract

In this work, pulsed laser deposition has been used to produce Er3+ doped lead-niobium-germanate thin films from Er3+ doped 50Geo2-25PbO-25Nb2O5 transparent glasses with an Er2O3 content in the 0.5-3 weight % range. In all cases, by pumping the 4I11/2 level of Er3+, the as deposited films are optically active showing at room temperature the 4I13/2 →4I15/2 emission centered around 1530 nm. The luminescence intensity increases as the Er3+ content in the targets increases, whereas the opposite behavior is observed for the luminescence lifetime. The emission intensity and lifetimes of the 1.5 μm emission increase upon annealing.