Abstract
AgX(As40S60)100-X thin films (x = 7, 15, 25, 50) were deposited on glass slides by a co-evaporation technique under vacuum. Photoinduced birefringence was induced using light provided from a continuous argon-ion laser operating at 488 nm. We investigated the impact of silver concentration and laser power density. The thin films structural changes after irradiation were characterized by Raman spectroscopy, indicating that addition of Ag induces the breaking of sulfur ring units and favors the creation of Ag-S-Ag bridging bonds. During this process, AgS3 pyramids and As4S4 molecules are formed, the latter being responsible for an increased photoinduced birefringence.
Highlights
Chalcogenide glasses are well known to be light sensitive materials when illuminated by light having energy close to their bandgap energy
Where λ is the wavelength of the reading laser, d is the film thickness, I is the intensity of the incident light and I0 is the light intensity after the Glan-Taylor prism [8]
Even if higher values of photoinduced birefringence (PIB) were obtained for the Ag25(As40S60)75 sample, we further studied the Ag15(As40S60)85 thin film, in which the PIB process is quite faster
Summary
Chalcogenide glasses are well known to be light sensitive materials when illuminated by light having energy close to their bandgap energy. In that case, photoinduced anisotropy was usually explained by the orientation of quasicrystalline clusters [3] or the re-orientation with polarized light of interatomic covalent bonds [4] In this text, photoinduced birefringence (PIB) will refer to structural birefringence ; an optical characteristic exhibited by amorphous solids under special circumstances, originating from structural anisotropy [5]. It is well known that As-S-Ag materials exhibit interesting photoinduced phenomena mainly based on the motion of metal ions along the direction of the incoming irradiation [6,7] Based on these facts, we can suppose that addition of silver could affect the bonding configuration and improve the PIB, since we would induce a photo-rearrangement or rotation of some new structural units. The ability to induce optical birefringence in an amorphous chalcogenide material provides a pathway to control the photoinduced polarization of light and could have a significant impact on the conception of optical elements
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