Low-temperature growth of silicon epitaxial layers codoped with erbium and oxygen atoms

The fabrication technology and properties of light-emitting Si structures codoped with erbium and oxygen are reported. The layers are deposited onto (100) Si by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) using an Er-doped silicon sublimation source. The partial pressure of the oxygen-containing gases in the growth chamber of the MBE facility before layer growth is lower than 5 $\times$ 10$^{-10}$ Torr. The oxygen and erbium concentrations in the Si layers grown at 450$^\circ$C is $\sim$ 1 $\times$ 10$^{19}$ and 10$^{18}$ cm$^{-3}$, respectively. The silicon epitaxial layers codoped with erbium and oxygen have high crystal quality and yield effective photoluminescence and electroluminescence signals with the dominant optically active Er-1 center forming upon postgrowth annealing at a temperature of 800$^\circ$C.