Enhanced Optical Properties of Germanate and Tellurite Glasses Containing Metal or Semiconductor Nanoparticles

Cid Bartolomeu De Araujo,Diego Silvério Da Silva,Thiago Alexandre Alves De Assumpção,Luciana Reyes Pires Kassab,Davinson Mariano Da Silva

doi:10.1155/2013/385193

Cid Bartolomeu De Araujo, Diego Silvério Da Silva + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.1155/2013/385193

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Abstract

Germanium- and tellurium-based glasses have been largely studied due to their recognized potential for photonics. In this paper, we review our recent studies that include the investigation of the Stokes and anti-Stokes photoluminescence (PL) in different glass systems containing metallic and semiconductor nanoparticles (NPs). In the case of the samples with metallic NPs, the enhanced PL was attributed to the increased local field on the rare-earth ions located in the proximity of the NPs and/or the energy transfer from the metallic NPs to the rare-earth ions. For the glasses containing silicon NPs, the PL enhancement was mainly due to the energy transfer from the NPs to the Er3+ ions. The nonlinear (NL) optical properties of PbO-GeO2 films containing gold NPs were also investigated. The experiments in the pico- and subpicosecond regimes revealed enhanced values of the NL refractive indices and large NL absorption coefficients in comparison with the films without gold NPs. The reported experiments demonstrate that germanate and tellurite glasses, having appropriate rare-earth ions doping and NPs concentration, are strong candidates for PL-based devices, all-optical switches, and optical limiting.

Highlights

Suitable composites for photonic applications have to present large transmittance, high refractive index, low cut-off phonon energy, and large nonlinear optical response
In glasses containing metal NPs when the incident light or the photoluminescence (PL) wavelengths are near the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) wavelength, λSP, a large PL enhancement may occur
rare-earth ions (REI) doped glasses containing metallic NPs have been investigated because their luminescence may be intensified by energy transfer from the metallic NPs and/or due to enhancement of the local field that acts on the REI located in the proximity of the NPs [10, 11]

Summary

Introduction

Suitable composites for photonic applications have to present large transmittance, high refractive index, low cut-off phonon energy, and large nonlinear optical response. Germanate and tellurite glasses have these characteristics and were identified as good hosts for trivalent rare-earth ions (REI) and metal or semiconductor nanoparticles (NPs) [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12] In these glasses, the linear and nonlinear optical properties may be largely enhanced due to the presence of the NPs. in glasses containing metal NPs when the incident light or the photoluminescence (PL) wavelengths are near the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) wavelength, λSP, a large PL enhancement may occur. Some evidence of this effect was reported long ago for silicon-rich silica glass [13,14,15,16]

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