Structural and spectroscopic properties of Er3+ doped sodium lithium borate glasses

The trivalent erbium (Er3+) doped sodium lithium borate glass with composition (65-x)B2O3 -15Na(2)O-10PbO-5ZnO-5Li(2)O-xEr(2)O(3) have been successfully fabricated by melt-quench technique. The structural properties were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier Transform Infrared ( FTIR). The absorption and luminescence spectra of glass samples were measured to determine the spectroscopic properties. The Judd-Ofelt parameters were calculated based on absorption spectra with values of Omega(2), 4.39, Omega(4) = 3.22, and Omega(6) = 0.91 ( x10(-22) cm(2)) for 2.0 mol%Er3+ ion doped sodium lithium borate glass. Furthermore, radiative properties including effective bandwidth (Delta lambda(eff)), radiative transition probability (A(R)), radiative lifetime (tau(R)), and branching ratio (beta(R)) were also calculated and analyzed. A strong emission band at 1532 nm was observed corresponding to I-4(15/2) -> I-4(13/2) transition under the excitation wavelength of 528 and 976 nm. The stimulated emission cross-section (sigma(e)) and figure of merit (FWHM x sigma(e)) were calculated and compared with other glasses in order to evaluate the properties of the present samples for optical amplifier. Based on the characterization results, we found that the glass with 2.0 mol% Er3+ ion doped sodium lithium borate glass had the highest stimulated emission cross section compared to other samples and were comparable with the previous reports. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.