Observation of low voltage driven green emission from erbium doped Ga₂O₃ light-emitting devices

Erbium doped Ga₂O₃ thin films were deposited on Si substrate by pulsed laser deposition method. Bright green emission (∼548 nm) can be observed by naked eye from Ga₂O₃:Er/Si light-emitting devices (LEDs). The driven voltage of this LEDs is 6.2 V which is lower than that of ZnO:Er/Si or GaN:Er/Si devices. Since the wide bandgap of Ga₂O₃ contain more defect-related level which will enhance the effects of recombination between electrons in the defect-related level and the holes in the valence band, resulting in the improvement of the energy transfer to Er ions. We believe that this work paves the way for the development of Si-based green LEDs by using wide bandgap Ga₂O₃ as the host materials for Er³⁺ ions.