Phase-separation engineering in fluorozirconate glass for designing and fabricating of transparent perfluorinate glass ceramic

Perfluorinate glass ceramics with ultra-low phonon energy are very important optical and photonic materials. Unfortunately, there is no suitable method to obtain transparent perfluorinate glass ceramics due to poor thermal stability of fluoride glass. As a result, wide applications of glass ceramics in advanced infrared systems are restricted. Here, an effective method based on phase-separation engineering is used to develop transparent perfluorinate glass ceramics. In this article, a novel transparent Er2+-doped ZnZrF6-Ba6Zn7F26 perfluorinate glass ceramic was designed and fabricated by phase-separation engineering. The sample exhibits low phonon energy (564 cm(-1)), ultra-wide transmission range (0.33-8.2 mu m, T >= 50 %), and strong infrared emission, which is better than that of ZBLAN glass, oxide-, and oxyfluoride-glass ceramics. These good properties of the perfluorinate glass ceramic demonstrate that phase-separation engineering not only offers an effective approach to obtain perfluorinate glass ceramics but also provides wide-ranging opportunities for advanced infrared optical and photonic materials.