Nanocrystal in Er3+-doped SiO2-ZrO2 Planar Waveguide with Yb3+ Sensitizer

Higher doping of Er3+ in glass ceramic waveguides would cause concentration and pair-induced quenching which lead to inhomogeneous line-width of luminescence spectrum thus reduce output intensity. Concentration quenching can be overcome by introducing ZrO2 in the glass matrix while co-doping with Yb3+ which acts as sensitizer would improve the excitation efficiency of Er3+. In this study, SiO2- ZrO2 planar waveguides having composition in mol percent of 70SiO2-30ZrO2 doped with Er3+ and co-doped with Yb3+, were prepared via sol-gel route. Narrower and shaper peaks of PL and XRD shows the formation of nanocrystals. Intensity is increase with addition amount of Yb3+ shows sensitizing effect on Er3+.