Third-order nonlinear optical features of zirconia-added lead silicate glass ceramics embedded with Pb2Fe2O5 perovskite crystal phases and role of Fe ions

Abstract

This study is aimed to identify the role of Fe2O3 in enhancing the efficiency of THG beam of Nd:YAG laser in lead zirconium silicate glass ceramics. The PbO–ZrO2–SiO2:Fe2O3 glass ceramics were synthesized by heat-treating the glasses for a prolonged time. XRD and SEM studies were performed to identify different crystalline phases in the samples. The SEM pictures have shown the presence of multiple crystallites of size in the range 0.1–0.6 µm, while characterization by XRD technique indicated the glass ceramic samples consist of perovskite Pb2FeIII2O5, FeII2SiO4, crystal phases. These studies have also demonstrated that there is an enhancement in the concentration of Fe3+ (Oh) crystalline phases with increasing quantity of Fe2O3 in the samples. Spectroscopic investigations (viz., IR and optical absorption) have further reinforced the above result and additionally indicated an increased degree of internal chaos in the material. The intensity of third harmonic generation (THG) beam of Nd:YAG laser (λ = 1064 nm) measured in the reflected regime after the pre-photopolarization of the samples indicated the largest intensity for the samples containing the highest concentration of Fe2O3. Thorough analysis of these results indicated that the tilted glass samples heat-treated with 0.5 mol% of Fe2O3 have significant chaotic internal structure and paved the way for obtaining intense THG signal with minimal phonon losses. Hence, such glass ceramics are predicted to be useful materials in the design of different optoelectronic devices.