| Zinc oxide (ZnO) is an excellent optoelectronic semiconductor materials with wide band gap, and become popular following the GaN optoelectronic field. ZnO related industries will have broad application fields and market prospects. For the special electronic shell structure rare earth elements have a wealth of properties involves mechanics, optics, electrics and magnetism which draw the research interests of scientists worldwidely. If the rare earth ions were doped in zinc oxide thin-film optical waveguide, and the rare earth ions were in a local environment with low phonon energy, the matrix material or the rare earth ions may show different characteristics, and the zinc oxide is an very potential light-emitting materials, for applications in integrated optics, high-density data storage systems, low-cost UV laser, light emitting diodes, solid-state lighting, security communications, biological detection, utilization of solar energy, optical communications, internet of things and other fields. The resources of rare earth has a strategic impact in the national economy, military, and international influence, and the excellent characteristics about rare earth have used in various sophisticated S&T and traditional area which have reflect a good social value. The research on rare earth characteristics conforms to the requirements of the times.This article described the knowledge of the thin-film optical waveguide theory, the rare earth elements and its application, preparation and research methods of thin films. The TRIM software was used to simulate the implantation of Ho, Er, Tm, Yb ions into ZnO materials, and some parameters of range distribution were obtained which have value to provide a reference to the actual experiments when contrast with the data which obtained by RBS.In this paper, ZnO waveguide films were prepared on (001) Al2O3and (100) MgO substrates by the magnetron sputtering technology using ZnO ceramic target. Optical waveguide properties and the internal stuctural information of the deposited thin films were investigated by the prism coupling method, X-ray diffraction(XRD) and Rutherford backscattering(RBS) technique. The results demonstrated the ZnO films have well planar waveguide structure with c-axis preferred orientation growth which have little other crystal direction and nearly stoichiometric of Zn and O composition ratio, the films’growth rates were slightly influenced by the substrates. The effective indices of the films were smaller than the bulk substrate material and affected by substrates. The average grain size of ZnO thin films deposited on sapphire substrates was smaller than which on MgO substrates, and it had no significant change with film thickness increases, yet on MgO substrates it had an increasing trend with the thichness increases.Yb-doped ZnO optical waveguide thin films were deposited on sapphire substrates by RF magnetron sputtering technology, and then Er+ions were implanted into the as-deposited films the energy was200KeV and implantation dose was1×1015ions/cm2. Waveguide properties was studied by prism coupling method. Film thickness, element components were studied by Rutherford backscattering technology (RBS). The basic structure and phase of the films were studied using X-ray diffraction (XRD). The property of optical frequency upconversion was investigated by fluorescence spectrometer. The results showed the Er-implanted-Yb-doped films have waveguide structure but the waveguide properties was poor than the pure ZnO films which prepared by magnetron sputtering, and the effective refractive indices and film forming rates were decreased by Yb doped concentration levels increased. ZnO films were well-developed c-axis preferred orientation structure, Yb and Er are incorporated into the ZnO lattice successfully, while the lattice constants are varied by the Yb doping amount. Excitated by the980nm laser in room temperature, stimulated upconvension emission was not observed between300～720nm.Rare earth ion-doped ZnO thin films were deposited by RF magnetron sputtering using ZnO sintered ceramic plates doped with rare earth oxide as the target. The properties of optical were studied by980nm laser excitation.There are many ways to doped rare earth elements in ZnO, and the ion implantation is one way of non-uniform doping. Er+ions with energy of200keV, dose of1×1015ions/cm2and X1014ions/cm2were implanted into ZnO thin films and Yb-doped ZnO thin films using ion implantation technology at room temperature. For the effective activation of rare earth ions and recovery of lattice damage caused by implantation using the annealing furnace in air atmosphere, the samples were annealed at850℃processing (after annealing the samples were extremely transparent). Studies found that ZnO films doped with Yb and Er can form waveguide structure, but the quality of the waveguide is poor than the pure ZnO waveguide film, the film effective refractive index and deposition rate increase in the trend of decrease increasing of Yb doping amount; film have the ZnO classic c-axisoriented growth; spectrometer was used to study the optical frequency conversion properties,980nm semiconductor laser is used as the pump source, tested results between300-720nm spectral not found in films under980nm laser excitation while the spectrum of720nm to the infrared range was not studied.Finally, there is a brief look forward on further research on the subject. |
