Effect of zirconia in Er3+-doped SiO2-ZrO2 for planar waveguide laser

SiO₂-ZrO₂ doped Er³⁺ glass ceramic waveguides are promising materials for photonic applications. However, higher doping of Er³⁺ ions would cause erbium ion clustering due to network structure of silica which has strong Si-O-Si covalent bonds thus reduced the luminescence emission intensity. Network structure of silica can be overcome by introducing ZrO₂ as co-host material in silica glass matrix which helps Er³⁺ ions dispersed homogenously. Hence, avoiding the cluster formation of erbium in silica and consequently enhanced the luminescence spectra. In this paper, we present study on various molar ratio of SiO₂-ZrO₂ doped with 0.58 mol% Er³⁺ prepared via sol-gel technique. Increased percent molar ratio of zirconia shows narrow sharp peak of photoluminescence spectra at 568 nm wavelength with higher intensity. It is anticipated that the refractive index increased with higher zirconia content while the coating tends to form thinner film layers. The surface roughness and optical transmission of the samples are also presented.