Uniformly and selectively doped silicon:erbium structures produced by the sublimation MBE method

Si:Er structures produced by an original sublimation MBE method demonstrate intense Er-related luminescence at 1.54 μm both ‘as grown’ and after annealing procedure. In this contribution we discuss the peculiarities of formation of optically active Er centers in these materials and their transformation behavior depending on the growth and annealing conditions. The photoluminescence features of uniformly Er-doped layers and of the specific selectively doped structures consisting of many periods of Si and Si:Er layers with the thicknesses down to 20 Å are described. A remarkable high luminescence efficiency of the selectively doped multi-layer structures as compared to the uniformly doped is pointed out.