Spectroscopic investigation of samarium‐doped lead oxyflouroborate glasses using photo and cathode luminescence

Abstract

AbstractSamarium‐doped lead oxyflouroborate glasses of 60 B2O3‐ xPbO‐ (40‐x)LiF where (x=0‐30 mol%) with 3×1020 ions/cm3 of Sm2O3, were prepared by melt quenching. UVVis absorption, photo luminescence (PL) and cathode luminescence (CL) spectroscopies were used to study the effect of varying PbO content on the spectroscopic properties of these samarium‐doped glasses. The absorption of the UV‐edge shifts toward higher wavelengths, not only because of higher polarizability of lead ions, but also because of the strong allowed s‐p transition of Pb2+. Judd‐Ofelts parameters were determined and indicate that the asymmetry around Sm3+ ions increases with increasing PbO content. Ω2 probes the asymmetry by the ratio of intensity of the hypersensitive transition (6H9/2) to that of purely magnetic (6H5/2) transition. Furthermore, an increase in the spectroscopic quality factor (Ω4/Ω6) was observed with increasing PbO content which indicates that these glasses have the potential to be used as efficient active laser glasses. The calculated energy transfer parameter increases with increasing PbO content. Also, stark splitting increases with increasing PbO concentrations. FWHM of the CL emission peaks and stark splitting, are found to be much larger than that in PL. This was explained by the high electric field generated from the exciting electron pulses.