Room-temperature photoluminescence from erbium-doped multilayer porous silicon microcavity

A multilayer microcavity was electrochemically etched on a silicon substrate and doped with erbium. Thermal processing under a nitrogen atmosphere optically activated the erbium-ions. Photo-pumping yielded room temperature emission around 1.54 μm from the erbium-doped samples with the emitted light strongly modified by the microcavity structure. Emission spectra with a peak at 1.536 μm had a full width at half maximum of ∼6 nm.