Effect of humidity and UV-assistance on the preparation of erbium doped alumina by aerosol MOCVD process

1. IntroductionErbium-doped silica materials have received much researchinterest, since they emit light at 1.5 m, which is crucial fortelecommunication applications [1,2]. But erbium-doped silicateglasses are strongly limited by cooperative upconversion effectswhich occur even at low rare earth concentration in this materialdue to the rare earth clustering [3]. In order to avoid this phe-nomenon, crystalline host materials such as alumina have beenproposed as amplifying media [3,4]. The deposition of erbium-doped aluminium oxide films has been investigated by usingAerosol AssistedMOCVD(AA-MOCVD)atlowtemperaturedeposi-tion [5].However,thequalityofthealuminiumoxidefilmsreportedto date has not been so impressive. These films usually containedlarge amounts of carbon resulting from incomplete decompositionof the organic source [6]. In addition, the film growth rate was low.In thispaper,wereporttheeffectofUV-assistanceandairhumidityon the growth of erbium-doped alumina by AA-CVD.