Photoluminescence of erbium doped microcrystalline silicon thin films produced by reactive magnetron sputtering

Microcrystalline silicon thin films doped with erbium were produced by RF sputtering and their structural, chemical and optical properties were studied by X-ray diffractometry at grazing incidence, Rutherford back scattering (RBS) and optical transmission spectroscopy. The samples exhibit a sharp photoluminescence (PL) spectrum from the Er centres with the strongest peak positioned at 1.536 μm with a full width at half maximum of about 8 nm. When the temperature varies between 5 and 300 K, the photoluminescence decreases only 5-fold, in contrast to the behaviour reported for monocrystalline silicon.