New results in erbium-doped planar waveguide amplifiers and lasers are presented. The waveguides are produced in silica-on-silicon
technology using plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition. Waveguide propagation losses outside the erbium absorption band
are improved to values below 0.05 dB/cm for a core–cladding index step of around 1.4%. Amplifier arrays show a net gain of
more than 12 dB over the entire C-band.
Received: 13 June 2001 / Published online: 23 October 2001