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Erbium-doped nanocrystal (NC)-dispersed polymer thin films are attractive core materials for use in optical waveguides as they can provide high optical gain and enable the formation of compact waveguide amplifiers. Nonetheless, there are significant challenges associated with obtaining good dispersibility of NCs into a polymer matrix and favorable optical properties. Therefore, in this paper, we report the fabrication of Er3+-doped ceria (EGC) NCs employing the Leeds alginate process (LAP) and their incorporation into a siloxane polymer matrix. The surface morphology and compositional, structural, and optical properties of the fabricated films are evaluated to assess the NC dispersion and their suitability for the waveguide amplifier. The photoluminescence (PL) and lifetime measurements of the NCs–polymer nanocomposite thin film samples show intense, broadband PL emission of the Er3+ ions at 1534 nm (4I13/2 → 4I15/3 transition) with a full width at half-maximum (fwhm) of ∼64 nm and lifetime in the range of 2.6–3.0 ms. The inhomogeneously broadened PL spectra and improvement in lifetime of NCs in the polymer are important results that we report. The EGC NCs–polymer nanocomposite thin films also exhibit excellent transparency in the NIR wavelength range and a refractive index in the range of 1.53–1.58 in the visible wavelength. The work presented here clearly demonstrates the potential of using high-quality Er-doped nanocomposite polymer thin films for interesting applications such as compact low-cost waveguide amplifiers and lasers.

Optical technologies are increasingly considered for use inside high -performance electronic systems to overcome the performance bottleneck of electrical interconnects when operating at high frequencies and provide high -speed communication between electronic chips and modules. Polymer waveguides are a leading candidate to implement boardlevel optical interconnections as they exhibit favourable mechanical, thermal and optical properties for direct integration onto conventional printed circuit boards (PCBs). Numerous system demonstrators have been reported in recent years featuring different types of polymer materials and opto-electronic (OE) PCB designs. However, all demonstrated polymerbased interconnection technologies are currently passiv e, which limits the length of the on-board links and the number of components that can be connected in optical bus architectures. In this paper therefore, we present work towards the formation of low-cost optical waveguide amplifiers that can be readily integrated onto standard PCBs by combining two promising optical technologies: siloxane-based polymer waveguides and ultra-fast laser plasma implantation (ULPI). Siloxane-based waveguides exhibit high-temperature resistance in excess of 300°C and low loss at different wavelength ranges, while ULPI has been demonstrated to produce very high dopant concentrations in thin films with values of 1.63×10 21 cm −3 recently reported in Er-doped silica layers. Here we present detailed simulation studies that demonstrate the potential to achieve a net gain of up to 8 dB/cm from such structures and report on initial experimental work on Erdoped polymer films and waveguides demonstrating photoluminescence and good lifetimes.

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