Evaluation of TeO 2 content on the optical and spectroscopic properties of Yb 3+ -doped calcium borotellurite glasses.

This paper reports the synthesis and the characterization of Yb3+-doped calcium borotellurite (CaBTeX) glasses with composition 10CaF2–(29.5−0.4x)CaO–(60−0.6x)B2O3–xTeO2–0.5Yb2O3 (x=10, 16, 22, 31 and 54mol%). The results of XRD confirm the amorphous character of all the samples. The density, molar volume, refractive index and electronic polarizability values show an increase with TeO2 content. Otherwise, the optical band gap energy shows a decrease with the increase of TeO2 content. The replacement of CaO and B2O3 by TeO2 changes the glass structure, which decreases the excited Yb3+/cm3 and, consequently, the luminescence intensity. The temperature dependence of luminescence was studied for all the samples up to 420K. The fluorescence lifetime does not change significantly due to TeO2 addition. In addition, absorption and emission cross section were calculated and present high values as compared to other tellurite and phosphate glasses.