Observation of low voltage driven green emission from erbium doped Ga2O3 light-emitting devices

Erbium doped Ga2O3 thin films were deposited on Si substrate by pulsed laser deposition method. Bright green emission (∼548 nm) can be observed by naked eye from Ga2O3:Er/Si light-emitting devices (LEDs). The driven voltage of this LEDs is 6.2 V which is lower than that of ZnO:Er/Si or GaN:Er/Si devices. Since the wide bandgap of Ga2O3 contain more defect-related level which will enhance the effects of recombination between electrons in the defect-related level and the holes in the valence band, resulting in the improvement of the energy transfer to Er ions. We believe that this work paves the way for the development of Si-based green LEDs by using wide bandgap Ga2O3 as the host materials for Er3+ ions.