Yan, KunlunVu, KhuYang, ZhiyongWang, RongpingDebbarma, SukantaLuther-Davies, BarryMadden, Steve2016-05-262016-05-262159-3930http://hdl.handle.net/1885/101726We report, for the first time, Er-doped Ge-Ga-Se films and waveguides deposited using co-thermal evaporation and patterned with plasma etching. The emission properties of the bulk glasses were studied as a function of Erbium doping, showing for the first time that there is a clear concentration quenching effect in the Ge-Ga-Se glasses with a linear radiative lifetime degradation slope of −0.48 ms/mol% Er from a low concentration lifetime of 1.7 ms, even when sufficient Gallium is present to ensure homogeneous distribution of the Erbium. A region between approximately 0.5 and 0.75 mol% Erbium however is shown to provide sufficient doping, good photoluminescence and adequate lifetime to envisage practical planar waveguide amplifier devices. Film emission properties at 0.7 mol% doping were studied and compared with the bulk counterpart showing adequate lifetimes and photoluminescence. Erbium doped films with ~0.8 dB/cm propagation loss at 1550 nm limited by Mie scattering off small particles ejected from the evaporation crucible were fabricated. Planar hybrid Er-Ge-Ga-Se/As2S3 rib waveguides fabricated through photolithography and plasma etching demonstrated propagation losses of ~2 dB/cm at 1650 nm limited by particulate scattering.This research was supported by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Ultrahigh bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems (project number CE110001018). Dr Zhiyong Yang is supported by ARC DECRA project DE120101036.© 2014 Optical Society of America201410.1364/OME.4.0004642016-06-14