Annealing behaviour of structure and morphology and its effects on the optical gain of Er3+/Yb3+ co-doped Al2O3 planar waveguide amplifier

Using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and x-ray diffraction analysis, we have studied the structural and morphological evolution of highly Er/Yb co-doped Al2O3 films in the temperature range from 600 degrees C-900 degrees C. By comparison with TEM observation, the annealing behaviours of photoluminescence (PL) emission and optical loss were found to have relation to the structure and morphology. The increase of PL intensity and optical loss above 800 degrees C might result from the crystallization of amorphous Al2O3 films. Based on the study on the structure and morphology, a rate equation propagation model of a multilevel system was used to calculate the optical gains of Er-doped Al2O3 planar waveguide amplifiers involving the variation of PL efficiency and optical loss with annealing temperature. It was found that the amplifiers had an optimized optical gain at the temperature corresponding to the minimum of optical loss, rather than at the temperature corresponding to the maximum of PL efficiency, suggesting that the optical loss is a key factor for determining the optical gain of an Er-doped Al2O3 planar waveguide amplifier.