Effect of Samarium Oxide on Structural and Optical Properties of Zinc Silicate Glass Ceramics from Waste Material

Abstract

This work indicates the synthesis of samarium doped zinc silicate (willemite) glass ceramics with different weight concentrations. Solid-state reaction technique was used to make up the samples, with waste rice husks as silicate source. The measurement of X-ray diffraction revealed sharp and broad diffraction peaks. Besides, the Field emission scanning electron microscope exhibited the poly grains morphology of the crystalline samples. Consequently, samarium strips were growing in size as the weight percent of dopant was increased. While Fourier transforms infrared spectra, showed slight variation peaks with diverse dopant concentrations. Then the energy band gaps of samarium doped willemite glass ceramics were reduced with the increment of samarium dopant concentrations. The photoluminescence measurement exhibited the red emission which agreed to the 4G5/2 → 6H11/6 (646.71 nm) under the blue excitation.