Gold nanoparticles assisted structural and spectroscopic modification in Er3+-doped zinc sodium tellurite glass

Abstract

Achieving enhanced spectroscopic properties of rare earth doped inorganic glasses by embedding metallic nanoparticles of controlled sizes is a challenging task. We report the gold (Au) NPs assisted modifications in structural and spectroscopic properties of melt-quench synthesized Er3+ doped zinc sodium tellurite glass. The growth of NPs is stimulated via time varying heat treatment at 300°C. XRD patterns confirm the amorphous nature of glasses and TEM images manifest the growth of gold NPs with sizes between 6.1 and 10.7nm. The heat treatment time dependent variations in physical properties are ascribed to the alteration in bonding of non-bridging oxygen ions. The UV–VIS–NIR spectra reveal six absorption peaks centered at 488, 523, 655, 800, 973 and 1533nm corresponding to the transition from ground state of 4I15/2 to 4F7/2, 2H11/2, 4F9/2, 4I9/2,4I11/2, and 4I13/2 excited states of Er3+ ions, respectively. Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) bands are observed in the range of 618–632nm. Judd–Ofelt analyses demonstrate a significant increase of spectroscopic quality factors (0.86–1.05) and branching ratio (0.62–92.38%). The up-conversion emission spectra of Er3+ exhibit three prominent peaks of reasonable green (502nm), a moderate green (546nm) and a strong red (629nm). An enhancement in the red band luminescence intensity by a factor of 8.19 and 8.54 times are achieved for 2 and 4h of heat treatments, respectively. This enhancement is attributed to the SPR effects of gold NPs producing an intense local field in the proximity of Er3+ ions and subsequent energy transfer between RE ions and NPs. The FTIR spectra display the presence of vibrational modes for ZnO4 bonds, Te–O bond in TeO3 (tp) and TeO4 (tbp) units and the hydroxyl groups. Excellent features of the results suggest that our method constitute a basis for tunable growth of gold NPs which is exceedingly useful for the optimization of optical and structural properties.