Single crystalline Er2O3:sapphire films as potentially high-gain amplifiers at telecommunication wavelength

摘要

Single crystalline thin films of ErO, demonstrating efficient 1.5 μm luminescence of Er at room temperature were grown on AlO substrate by molecular beam epitaxy. The absorption coefficient at 1.536 μm was found to reach 270 cm translating in a maximal possible gain of 1390 dBcm. In conjunction with the 10% higher refractive index as compared to AlO, this opens the possibility to use ErO:sapphire films as short-length waveguide amplifiers in telecommunication.