Rare-earth doped micro-emitters made by lift-off processing in pulsed laser deposited layers on Si substrate

Rare earth emitters are promising in integrated optics but require complex integration on silicon. In this work, we have fabricated an Y₂O₃:Eu³⁺ micro-emitter on SiO₂ on Si substrate without etching. Since pulsed laser deposition produces a high quality layer at room temperature, material can be locally deposited on top of substrates by lift-off processing. After annealing, microstructures exhibit good crystallographic quality with controlled dimensions for light confinement and narrow emission. This works allows envisioning rare-earth doped micro-photonic structures directly integrated on silicon without etching, which opens the way to integration of new functional materials on silicon platform.