Mid-infrared induced quenching of photoluminescence in Si:Er

The recently reported effect of luminescence quenching by a mid-infrared (MIR) pulse from a free-electron laser was investigated in various Si:Er materials. No quenching was observed in Si:Er samples whose photoluminescence spectra were dominated by the so-called ‘cubic’ centers. Furthermore, in addition to the low-symmetry Er-related spectra, the MIR-induced quenching was found to take place also for a broad emission band centered around 1.4 μm, and usually assigned to implantation damage. The band-edge excitonic emission remained unaffected by the MIR radiation.