Abstract

The widespread use of silicon in the microelectronics arena makes the notion of using silicon for integrated optics attractive. Several authors have reported schemes for making various kinds of optical waveguide in or on crystalline silicon. One approach is the epitaxial waveguide,¹ in which a heavily doped substrate exhibits a depressed refractive index due to the high density of free carriers, but the guiding layer remains lightly doped and of good optical quality. Beryllium pairs form an isoelectronic complex in crystalline silicon that can bind an exciton. At sufficiently low temperatures (T = 30 K), this bound exciton radiates efficiently in a narrow line near the wavelength λ = 1.15 μm. We report the observation of optical confinement of subband gap radiation emitted by excitons bound to beryllium pairs introduced by ion implantation and suitable annealing. Photographs and transverse image scans show clear confinement of the emitted radiation within the 15.5-μm epitaxial layer.

© 1987 Optical Society of America