Rare earth ions such as erbium or neodymium have small absorption cross section, which limit their excitation efficiency. Sensitizers like silicon nanocluster can be used to increase the luminescence efficiency of rare earths ions and hence reduce the pump power needed to achieve inversion of population in a waveguide amplifiers. In fact it was demonstrated that optically generated electron-hole pairs in Si nanocrystals can recombine and transfer energy to Er. Recently also silver has been proposed as erbium sensitizer as many absorption bands in the visible and near ultraviolet have been observed in glasses doped with Silver.

In this paper Ag and Er doped glass films have been synthesized with a combined sol-gel and ion-exchange route. The introduction of silver as erbium sensitizer in the film was obtained by ion-exchanging Er doped SiO₂-Al₂O₃-Na₂O sol-gel films. The films were subsequently annealed under controlled atmosphere to induce the migration and aggregation of the metal ions. Films showed different Er³⁺ photoluminescence behaviors depending on silver concentration and aggregation state. The interaction between erbium ions and Ag centers have been investigated and enhancement of the excitation cross section due to silver sensitizing effect have been demonstrated. The developed synthesis allowed also the realization of erbium doped channel waveguides by selective Na-Ag ion exchange process.

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