Physicochemical Properties and Fiber-Drawing Ability of Tellurite Glasses in the TeO2-ZnO-Y2O3 Ternary System

Clément Strutynski,Antoine Le Gendre,Frédéric Smektala,Jean-Charles Jules,Marianne Evrard,Frédéric Désévédavy,Grégory Gadret,Anthony Maldonado

doi:10.3390/ma15031177

Abstract

Glasses in the TeO2-ZnO-Y2O3 (TZY) ternary system are examined in the present work. The vitrification domain of the chosen oxide matrix is determined and differential scanning calorimetry as well as X-ray diffraction measurements are carried out. The material characterizations reveal that Y2O3 incorporation cannot exceed 5 mol.% without causing detrimental crystallization within the glass. Optical transmission and refractive index investigations are conducted on compositions yielding fully amorphous samples. Next, the fiber drawing ability of selected yttrium-containing zinc-tellurite glasses is assessed and fiber-attenuation measurements in the mid-infrared are presented. Finally, a multimode step-index fiber is fabricated by combining a TZY cladding glass with a La2O3-based tellurite core glass. It is believed that yttrium-containing glasses could prove useful in association with other high glass transition temperature (>300 °C) TeO2-based materials for the design of robust optical fibers with precisely engineered refractive index profiles.

Highlights

During the past twenty years, tellurite glasses have been the focus of highly motivated research activities related to material engineering for photonic applications
Thanks to their large vitrification domain, tellurites offer a wide variety of compositions with practical advantages in different fields, ranging from the elaboration of transparent glassceramics [1,2], to the development of rare-earth doped amplifiers [3,4], or even for infrared (IR) transmitting optics [5]
5 g test batches in the TeO2 -ZnO-Y2 O3 system are synthesized in order to establish the glass-forming TZY compositions

Summary

Introduction

During the past twenty years, tellurite glasses have been the focus of highly motivated research activities related to material engineering for photonic applications Thanks to their large vitrification domain, tellurites offer a wide variety of compositions with practical advantages in different fields, ranging from the elaboration of transparent glassceramics [1,2], to the development of rare-earth doped amplifiers [3,4], or even for infrared (IR) transmitting optics [5]. With the ever-increasing requirements of today’s photonic devices operation conditions (for instance, higher power and harsher environment), traditional tellurite glass compositions sometime seem to be limited in terms of performances, especially because of their low transformation temperatures This tendency is illustrated by the emergence of novel fiberizable heavy oxide glasses, such as germanate or gallate glasses, which exhibit higher glass transition temperatures and reinforced mechanical assets [10,11], and are suitable for more demanding fiber usage. Yttrium is often considered as a lanthanide because of its

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