Managing Erbium Emissions through ZnO Host Crystallinity

We report on the correlations between the optical emission of the Erbium and the structural conditions of ZnO host thin film. The influence of the local chemical environment on the luminescence properties of the trivalent RE ions is often disregarded, and the management of host crystallinity in Spray-Pyrolysis synthesis is provided by the precursor dilution, i.e., solution molarity (M). Here we present an analysis of Erbium photoluminescence depending on the host crystallinity, which implies different Stark fields. The use of lower molarity results in transparent films well texturized in c-axis while the use of high molarity provides an opaque powder-like film.