Spectroscopic assessment of rare-earth activated glasses, planar waveguides and microresonators

This paper deals with glass-based photonic structures, which allow to control and modify the optical and spectroscopic properties of rare earth ions. The spectroscopic assessment of sol gel-derived planar waveguides and 1-D photonic band gap structures is reported. The spectroscopic, optical, and structural properties of (100-x)SiO2 - xHfO2 -yErO1.5 (y = 0.3, 0.01; x = 10, 20, 30, 40 ) planar waveguides have been investigated by using photoluminescence and Raman spectroscopy. The radiative quantum efficiency of the 4I13/2 metastable state of Er3+ ions was estimated between 84 % and 88 % depending on the Si/Hf molar ratio. The sol gel-derived one-dimensional cavity was realized by a Eu3+-activated dielectric layer placed between two distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs).