Er-doped zinc-silicate glass-ceramics with enhanced emission in the near-infrared region

Erbium-doped lasers and amplifiers exhibit emission around 1.5 μm, which makes them perspective in various applications, such as telecommunications, material processing or defence. The conventionally used silica glass suffers from various drawbacks, such as low solubility of erbium ions or high phonon energy of the silica lattice, which limit the luminescence properties. The zinc-silicate glass-ceramics containing ZnO or Zn2SiO4 nanocrystals represent a suitable alternative. The incorporation of erbium ions into the nanocrystals should result in the enhancement of luminescence properties. In this work, we prepared a zinc-silicate glass-ceramic material containing Zn2SiO4 nanocrystals by the controlled heat treatment of a precursor glass. The luminescence properties of the 1.5 μm emission were measured and the influence of the crystallization on the near-infrared emission was evaluated.