Impact of rare earth element clusters on the excited state lifetime evolution under irradiation in oxide glasses.

Vera Pukhkaya,Alban Ferrier,Nadège Ollier,Philippe Goldner

doi:10.1364/oe.23.003270

Abstract

Rare earth doped active glasses and fibers can be exposed to ionizing radiations in space and nuclear applications. In this work, we analyze the evolution of (2)F(5/2) excited state lifetime in Yb(3+) ions in irradiated aluminosilicate glasses by electrons and γ rays. It is found that the variation of lifetimes depends on the Yb(3+) clusters content of the glasses for irradiation doses in the 10(2)- 1.5∙10(9) Gy range. In particular, glasses with high clustering show a smaller decrease in lifetime with increasing radiation dose. This behavior is well correlated to the variation in paramagnetic defects concentration determined by electron paramagnetic resonance. This effect is also observed in Yb(3+) doped phosphate and Er(3+) doped aluminosilicate glasses, inferring that clustering plays an important role in irradiation induced quenching.

Highlights

Yb3+ ion is an essential dopant in glasses and fibers for IR-lasers due to its highly-efficient emission at ~1 μm
We investigate the evolution of Yb3+ exited state lifetime under ionizing radiations for a broad dose range (102-109 Gy) in a series of aluminosilicate glasses
In order to examine the possible role of particular point defects in lifetime decrease, we carried out annealing treatments on two Yb3+-doped aluminosilicate glasses with opposite Yb3+ cluster content: ASI03_Yb5 and ASI09_Yb5

Summary

Introduction

Yb3+ ion is an essential dopant in glasses and fibers for IR-lasers due to its highly-efficient emission at ~1 μm. In glasses containing modifier ions, the local environment of Yb3+ ions is defined preferentially by Non-Bridging Oxygens Their concentration impacts the Yb clusters content in oxide glasses as was demonstrated in aluminosilicate, phosphate and aluminoborosilicate glasses [2, 3]. It has been shown that ionizing radiations (electron, γ rays) can affect Yb3+ spectroscopic properties in aluminoborosilicate glasses such as the 2F5/2 excited state lifetime and the cooperative emission intensity [5] This was correlated to the formation of hole centers type defect under irradiation, in this case, Non-Bridging Oxygen Hole Centers (NBOHC) [5]. We investigate the evolution of Yb3+ exited state lifetime under ionizing radiations (electrons, γ rays) for a broad dose range (102-109 Gy) in a series of aluminosilicate glasses The composition of these glasses was chosen to study the influence of Yb3+ clustering on spectroscopic changes. The same excited state lifetime evolution is observed in Yb3+ doped phosphate glasses and Er3+ doped aluminosilicate glasses, suggesting that this behavior is independent on the particular rare earth-glass combination

Experimental details

Optical and EPR spectroscopy of non-irradiated samples

Extension to other systems

Conclusion