Optical spectroscopy and energy transfer of Er^3+/Ce^3+ in B_2O_3-doped bismuth-silicate glasses

Abstract

Ce3+ and B2O3 are introduced into erbium-doped Bi2O3-SiO2 glass to enhance the luminescence emission and optic spectra characters of Er3+. The energy transfer from Er3+ to Ce3+ will obviously be improved with the phonon energy increasing by the addition of B2O3. Here, the nonradiative rate, the lifetime of the 4I11/2→4I13/2 transition, and the emission intensity and bandwidth of the 1.5 μm luminescence with the 4I13/2→4I15/2 transition of Er3+ are discussed in detail. The results show that the optical parameters of Er3+ in this bismuth-borate-silicate glass are nearly as good as that in tellurite glass, and the physical properties are similar to those in silicate glass. With the Judd-Ofelt and nonradiative theory analyses, the multiphonon decay and phonon-assisted energy-transfer (PAT) rates are calculated for the Er3+/Ce3+ codoped glasses. For the PAT process, an optimum value of the glass phonon energy is obtained after B2O3 is introduced into the Er3+/Ce3+ codoped bismuth-silicate glasses, and it much improves the energy-transfer rate between Er3+4I11/2→4I13/2 and Ce3+2F5/2→2F7/2, although there is an energy mismatch.