Decay dynamics of the green luminescence in Er3+-doped SiN alloys

In this paper we present results on green emission from Er3+-doped amorphous SiN alloys as a function of temperature and thermal annealing. It is shown that the lifetime of the green emission from the as-deposited sample decreases by an order of magnitude as the temperature increases from 5 to 300 K. Processes such as multiphonon decay and thermalization of the 2H11/2 and 4S3/2Er3+ levels are investigated in order to explain such behaviour. Concerning the effect of thermal annealing, our results show the activation of a new Er3+ site, whose nature may be related to the oxidation of the films