Time-Resolved Photoionization Detection of a Single Er3 Ion in Silicon

Abstract

The detection of charge trap ionization induced by resonant excitation enables spectroscopy on single Er3+ ions in silicon nanotransistors. In this work, a time-resolved detection method is developed to investigate the resonant excitation and relaxation of a single Er3+ ion in silicon. The time-resolved detection is based on a long-lived current signal with a tunable reset and allows the measurement under stronger and shorter resonant excitation in comparison to time-averaged detection. Specifically, the short-pulse study gives an upper bound of 23.7 μs on the decay time of the 4I13/2 state of the Er3+ ion. The fast decay and the tunable reset allow faster repetition of the single-ion detect..