| EPSRC Reference: |
EP/D051746/1 |
| Title: |
Implantation of Al and B for broadband sensitisation of rare-earth doped silica |
| Principal Investigator: |
Kenyon, Professor AJ |
| Other Investigators: |
|
| Researcher Co-Investigators: |
|
| Project Partners: |
|
| Department: |
Electronic and Electrical Engineering |
| Organisation: |
UCL |
| Scheme: |
Standard Research (Pre-FEC) |
| Starts: |
01 November 2005 |
Ends: |
31 October 2006 |
Value (£): |
3,052
|
| EPSRC Research Topic Classifications: |
| Materials Processing |
Materials Synthesis & Growth |
|
| EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications: |
| Communications |
Electronics |
|
| Related Grants: |
|
| Panel History: |
|
|
Summary on Grant Application Form |
|
This is a feasibility study aimed at investigating new materials to sensitise light emission from erbium ions in silica. Erbium is an important material for telecommunications and photonics as it emits light in the low-loss window of silica optical fibres, and for this reason it has found wide application in the Erbium Doped Fibre Amplifier. However, erbium has a very small excitation cross-section, suffers from clustering effects at high concentrations, and must be excited using expensive high-power lasers. Recent work has shown that these limitations can be overcome by exciting erbium ions via silicon nanoclusters, which have a large excitation cross section, can be excited using broad-band sources (e.g. LEDs), and couple excitation efficiently to nearby erbium ions. However, there are compelling scientific and technological reasons to investigate alternative sensitising agents. Scientifically, there remains much to be understood about the precise nature of the sensitisation process, and technologically it is important to identify the most efficient sensitiser that is compatible with existing processing technologies. Work by our group has indicated that aluminium may be an efficient sensitiser, and we have good reason to suspect that the same may also be true of boron clusters. Booth materials are very attractive because they are fully compatible with conventional silicon and silica fibre processing. The purpose of this project, therefore, is to fabricate a set of samples by ion implantation to investigate novel sensitisers.
|
|
Key Findings |
|
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
|
|
Potential use in non-academic contexts |
|
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
|
|
Impacts |
|
| Description |
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk |
| Summary |
|
| Date Materialised |
|
|
|
|
Sectors submitted by the Researcher |
|
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
|
| Project URL: |
|
| Further Information: |
|
| Organisation Website: |
|