Glass formation and third-order optical nonlinear properties within TeO 2–Bi 2O 3–BaO pseudo-ternary system

Abstract

Tellurite glasses from TeO 2–Bi 2O 3–BaO pseudo-ternary system were prepared using a conventional melt-quenching method and its glass-forming region was determined. A series of glasses were selected and their third-order optical nonlinearities (TONL) were measured by employing the Z-scan method at a wavelength of 800 nm with femtosecond laser pulses. The results showed that glass former Te 4+ ions exhibited positive influences on the TONL and glass modifiers Ba 2+ ions behaved similarly; low concentrated Bi 3+ ions as glass modifiers weakened the nonlinearities, but an excess amount of Bi 3+ behaved oppositely. FTIR measurements demonstrated that chemical bonds especially Te–O eq vibrated at a high energy level remarkably promoted the TONL susceptibility χ (3), and the glass sample with the highest Bi 2O 3 content exhibited the largest χ (3) value which was due to the presence of BiO 3 polyhedra.