Abstract:
Photoluminescence properties of the structures of amorphous and crystalline silicon nanoclusters with average sizes no larger than 4 nm in an erbium-doped silicon dioxide matrix were studied. It was found that the photoluminescence lifetime of Er$^{3+}$ ions at a wavelength of 1.5 $\mu$m decreases from 5.7 to 2.0 ms and from 3.5 to 1.5 ms in samples with amorphous nanoclusters and with nanocrystals, respectively, as the Er$^{3+}$ concentration increases from 10$^{19}$ to 10$^{21}$ cm$^{-3}$. The decrease in the erbium photoluminescence lifetime with the ion concentration is attributed to the effects of concentration-related quenching and residual implantation-induced defects. The difference between lifetimes for samples with amorphous and crystalline nanoclusters is interpreted as the effect of different probabilities of energy back transfer from Er$^{3+}$ ions to the solid-state matrix in the structures under consideration.
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