Towards Er-doped Si nanocrystal sensitized microcavity lasers and amplifiers

Planar erbium-doped optical amplifiers are being developed to compensate for losses that occur in photonic integrated circuits in which functions such as guiding, splitting, switching, and wavelength multiplexing are combined on a single chip. Lasers, doped with erbium, could serve as sources in communication networks operating around 1.5 pm or in optical interconnects or optical clocks in Si-based electronic integrated circuits.