IL NUOVO CIMENTO VOL. 18 D, N. 10 Ottobre 1996 Erbium doping of crystalline and amorphous silicon for optoelectronic applications (*) S. COFFA(1), S. LOMBARDO(1), F. PRIOLO(2), G. FRANZO(2), S. V. CAMPISANO(2) A. POLMAN(3) and G. N. VAN DEN HOVEN (3) (1) CNR-IMETEM - Stradale Primosole 50, 1-95121 Catania, Italy (2) INFM, Dipartimento di Fisica dell'Universit& - Corso Italia 57, 1-95129 Catania~ Italy (3) FOM-AMOLF - Kvuislaan 407, 1098 SJ Amsterdam, The Netherlands (ricevuto il 19 Aprile 1996; approvato il 21 Giugno 1996) Summary. -- In this work we demonstrate that efficient light emission at 1.54 ~tm can be achieved when Er ions are incorporated into crystalline Si or in heavily oxygen-doped amorphous and polycrystalline Si films (SIPOS). We have found that temperature quenching of photo- and electroluminescence, which is the major limitation towards the achievement of room temperature luminescence, can be strongly reduced by codoping these films with oxygen. This impurity is already present in as-prepared SIPOS and it is introduced by ion-implantation in crystalline Si. Er luminescence is obtained under both optical and electrical excitation and we demonstrate that excitation occurs through a carrier-mediated process. Electrical excitation is obtained by incorporating Er in properly designed device structures. It is found that this excitation can occur both through the recombination of hole-electron pairs and through impact excitation of the Er ions by hot electrons. These two mechanisms have different efficiencies and impact excitation is shown to prevail at room temperature. These data are presented and possible future developments are discussed. PACS 85.60 - Optoelectronic devices. PACS 01.30.Cc - Conference proceedings. Introduction The field of optoelectronics and integrated photonics is largely expanding due to the requirement of highly efficient telecommunication services. The progresses in this field will be driven by the technological evolution required for the realization of optical waveguides, optical amplifiers and light sources. The possibility to realize most of these devices in silicon is particularly appealing [1]. In fact, one might take (*) Paper presented at the III INSEL (Incontro Nazionale sul Silicio Emettitore di Luce), Torino, 12-13 October 1995. 1131