Rare-earth doped micro-emitters made by lift-off processing in pulsed laser deposited layers on Si substrate

Opt Express. 2021 Mar 1;29(5):7321-7326. doi: 10.1364/OE.416450.

Abstract

Rare earth emitters are promising in integrated optics but require complex integration on silicon. In this work, we have fabricated an Y2O3:Eu3+ micro-emitter on SiO2 on Si substrate without etching. Since pulsed laser deposition produces a high quality layer at room temperature, material can be locally deposited on top of substrates by lift-off processing. After annealing, microstructures exhibit good crystallographic quality with controlled dimensions for light confinement and narrow emission. This works allows envisioning rare-earth doped micro-photonic structures directly integrated on silicon without etching, which opens the way to integration of new functional materials on silicon platform.