A new technique for obtaining medium current erbium ion beams, for photonics devices, using typical microelectronics ion implanter

The technique described here is intended to produce Er/sup ++/ beams, using typical ion implanter equipment normally used for microelectronics application. Erbium is a fundamental species whose incorporation into optical/semiconductor substrates produces stimulated radiation that allows the fabrication of photonics devices. The erbium ion implantation in contrast to the fiber diffusion process has all the inherent advantages of ion implantation i.e., high doses, vertical profiles, low thermal process among others. This technique uses the same ion source of the original equipment (Freeman type) and focuses on the placement of the erbium material in the arc chamber. Currents up to 100 /spl mu/A were obtained, which implies that doses up to 10/sup 17/ cm/sup -2/ could be reached. Double ionized atoms of erbium are produced by a plasma enhanced sputtering process and accelerated with a voltage up to 200 kV reaching beams close to 400 keV.