Assessment of the main material issues for achieving an Er coupled to silicon nanoclusters infrared amplifier

We will discuss several material issues that are mandatory to address and then overcome in order to optimise the fraction of Er3+ coupled to Si-nc, with the aim of exciting all the ions through indirect transfer. In particular we will address: carrier absorption (CA) in Si-nc, cooperative up-conversion and non-radiative recombination in Er3+, together with the distance dependent interaction and Auger back-transfer processes in the Er/Si-nc coupled system.