Research Article |
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Corresponding author: Konstantin V. Feklistov ( kofeklistov@yandex.ru ) © 2026 Konstantin V. Feklistov, Aleksey G. Lemzyakov, Demid S. Abramkin, Kirill A. Svit, Alexey M. Pugachev, Vladimir A. Volodin, Denis V. Marin, Evgeny V. Spesivsev, Ivan A. Azarov, Leonid N. Safronov, Sergey A. Kochubey, Kirill S. Ershov, Aleksandr V. Kapishnikov, Alexander N. Shmakov, Alexander A. Shklyaev, Yuriy A. Zhivodkov.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
Feklistov KV, Lemzyakov AG, Abramkin DS, Svit KA, Pugachev AM, Volodin VA, Marin DV, Spesivsev EV, Azarov IA, Safronov LN, Kochubey SA, Ershov KS, Kapishnikov AV, Shmakov AN, Shklyaev AA, Zhivodkov YA (2026) 1.534 µm Er electroluminescence in the RF magnetron deposited In2O3 : Er films on a Si substrate. Modern Electronic Materials 12(2): 95-102. https://doi.org/10.3897/j.moem.12.2.205390
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In2O3 : Er films were synthesized on silicon substrates by the RF magnetron sputter deposition. The solid solution ((In1-xErx)2O3) is formed here. The 1.534 µm erbium electroluminescence is observed by the current through the investigated heterostructure substrate-n-Si\In2O3 : Er-film\ITO-contact. The Er excitation model by the electron-hole recombination is proposed as follow. The electron current flows at the indium oxide conduction band. And the hole current flows at the channel in the middle of the In2O3 : Er bandgap. The hole channel is formed by the defect state density spreading from the valence band edge into the bandgap. Therefore the electron-hole recombination energy is lower than the indium oxide bandgap and equals to the 1.56 eV. Then the electron-hole recombination excites in resonance the third excited state of Er3+ 4I9/2 (1.53 eV). Then the nonradiative relaxation to the first excited state 4I13/2 (0.81 eV) occurs. And finally the 1.534 µm radiative emission into ground state 4I15/2 occurs.
silicon, indium oxide, erbium, thin films, heterostructure, band structure, electrons, holes, electroluminescence
The inter- and intro-chip data transfer by the optical interconnections is the ongoing perspective step in the development of computing systems [
A small review of the main approaches to and features of LED on silicon integration is presented in paper [
The alternative approach is to use the Er3+ inneratomic optical transition 4I13/2 → 4I15/2 with emission wavelength 1.54 μm [
In the previous papers, the barriers for the current injection from the Si substrate into the In2O3 film were found [
The In2O3 : Er films were deposited on the n-type 6∙1014 cm-3 phosphorus-doped Cz-Si (100) wafers with resistivity 7.5 Ohm·cm. The wafers were back-implanted with As+ 100 keV, 1·1015 cm-2 and annealed at 1000 °С during 1 h in the Ar ambient in order to get the back-contact doping.
The Si wafer surface was cleaned by the RCA process [
– Ar flow rate 20 sccm, O2 flow rate 2 sccm;
– working pressure P = 6∙10-3 mbar;
– RF power WRF = 100 Wt;
– supply power frequency 13.56 MHz;
– substrate temperature 100 °C;
– deposition time t = 5 h.
The deposited film thickness was 1 µm.
The EL emission was observed through top electric ITO (Indium Tin Oxide [
The I–V curves for the structures Si/In2O3 : Er/Contact on n- and p-type conductivity silicon substrates have rectifying patterns as shown in former works [
The EL emission was measured at the Fourier-transform (FT) spectrometer Brucker Vertex 70. The spectrometer is equipped with the near-infrared range Raman module and liquid nitrogen-cooled germanium detector sensitive up to 1.7 µm including 1.54 µm required. The spectral resolution of the FTIR spectrometer is 4 cm-1 or 4 A. The measurements were performed at room temperature. First, the Raman FTIR spectrum from the sample was measured excited with the apparatus neodymium laser at the 1064 nm wavelength and power 10 mWt. Focusing into 300×300 µm2 area it gives power density of 14 Wt/cm2. The Stocks part of Raman FTIR spectrum was measured. Second, the current was put through the sample and the EL spectrum was measured.
In addition to the microscopy data of [
As it was shown in [
Figure
The lattice constant was found from the experimental XRD pattern in Fig.
The blue lines at Fig.
Another feature of the In2O3 : Er film experimental XRD pattern is large width of peaks. It evidences a small coherent scattering area (CSA). CSA could depend of the film nanocrystal size. The CSA size was estimated with the Sheerer formula [
(1)
where Dhkl is the CSA size (in angstroms) perpendicular to the hkl plain; n ≈ 1 is the nanocrystal shape coefficient; λ = 0.15418 nm is the apparatus wave length used; θ (in radians) is the scattering angle; β (in radians on 2θ scale) is the peak full width at a half maximum (FWHM). The estimation was performed for each key XRD peak and is presented in the Table
In Fig.
The black dashed line shows the typical silicon spectra obtained under laser excitation only. Since both the deposited In2O3 : Er film and the top ITO-contact are optically transparent under the exciting laser, then there is strong and narrow Raman peak out of silicon substrate observed at the 1126.3 nm. This Raman peak is due to the inelastic scattering by silicon optical phonons with wave vector k = 520 cm-1 and energy 64.5 meV [
Since the excitation laser energy (λ = 1064 nm, E = 1.17 eV) exceeds the silicon bandgap (Eg = 1.12 eV at T = 300 K [
Under the stationary direct current flow through the sample the multiplet peak at the 1534 nm wavelength appears at the combined spectrum (see Fig.
Schematic band diagram, injection barriers, current transport and Er3+ excitation mechanism in heterostructure n-Si\In2O3 : Er at forward bias +V at the top contact
Excited states of Er3+ ion in accordance with the literature data [
As it is shown at Fig.
As it is shown at Fig.
The barriers for the currents injection from the silicon substrate into the RF-magnetron deposited In2O3 : Er films were obtained in [
In this case the electron-hole pairs (e– – h+) are formed in indium oxide, when the electron is located in the conduction band (Ec) and the hole is in the defect channel (Eds) inside the bandgap. The energy of such an electron-hole pair equals the sum of forward barrier for electrons, one for holes and the silicon bandgap (Φef + Φhf + Eg(Si)) which gives Ec – Eds = 0.14 + 0.3 + 1.12 = 1.56 eV (see Fig.
As it was mentioned above, the Er3+ ions are excited by electron-hole pairs recombination energy Ec – Eds = 1.56 eV (see Fig.
Thus, the observed 1.534 µm Er EL supports the proposed Er excitation mechanism by means of the electron-hole recombination. The strong confirmation of the proposed mechanism requires further investigations.
The magnetron sputtered In2O3 : Er films were found to be the solid solution ((In1-xErx)2O3). The obtained ((In1-xErx)2O3) solid solution has the bcc In2O3 Ia-3 space group. The lattice constant of the ((In1-xErx)2O3) solid solution was found equal to a = 1.0225 ± 0.0004 nm. The observed lattice constant exceeds the one for the given Er concentration 1 at.% in the film. This discrepancy could be related to the vacancy type defects or to the tensile lattice strain.
The EL at room temperature was observed for the In2O3 : Er films on the n-Si substrate with the top ITO-contact at the forward bias applied. The observed EL spectrum demonstrates the radiative transition from the first excited state Er3+ 4I13/2 to the ground state 4I15/2 with the photon emission at the 1.534 µm wavelength.
The Er excitation mechanism proposed by the electron-hole recombination in the indium oxide and the electron-hole pair energy (1.56 eV) transfer to excite in resonance the third excited Er3+ state 4I13/2 (1.53 eV), and by a subsequent nonradiative relaxation to the first excited state 4I13/2 (0.81 eV) followed by the radiative transfer to the ground state 4I15/2 with the photon emission.
The research was supported by FSI (grant No. 4235GS1/70543 from 27.10.2021) and partly by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation. V.A.V., M.D.V. and K.A.V. (NSU) acknowledge the financial support from the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation by the grant: FSUS-2024-0020., S.A.A. (ISP SB RAS): FWGW-2025-0011, E.K.S. (ICKC SB RAS): FWGF-2026-0011, P.A.M. (IA&E SB RAS): FWNG-2024-0023, S.A.N (BIC SB RAS): FWUR-2024-0042. The XRD measurements were performed on the equipment of the Shared research center ATICKP NSU and CKP “SKIF”. Оptical measurements were realized on the equipment of CKP “High resolution spectroscopy of gases and condensed media” IA&E SB RAS. The film sputtering was performed at the shared research center SSTRC on the basis of the VEPP-4 – VEPP-2000 complex at BINP SB RAS. The sputtering target was manufactured by Phildal Holding Co., Ltd., China. The authors acknowledge E.D. Zanaev and N.V. Dudchenko for their chemical and thermal treatments.