Thermal and radiative characteristics of oxyfluoride glass singly doped with lanthanide ions

Rare earths-doped oxyfluoride glasses based on germanium oxide and lead fluoride were prepared from commercial raw materials. The glasses with general composition of 50GeO2-(50-x-y)PbO-yPbF2-xLnF3 (Ln=Pr3+-Yb3+), contained different concentrations of optically active dopants (x=0.2 mol.% and 2 mol.%) and PbF2 (y=15 mol.%). The differential thermal analysis (DTA) was used to determine both thermal characteristic and thermal stability properties of the glasses in the function of the kind of dopant, its concentration, and a glass composition. Characteristic glass temperatures such as glass transition temperature (Tg), glass crystallization temperature (Tc) and temperature corresponding to the maximum of the crystallization rate (Tpc) were evaluated. On the basis of obtained results, the thermal stabilities of glasses under study were evaluated using various thermal stability criteria (Dietzel factor ?T, Saad-Poulain factors H' and S). It was found that the increase in rare earth fluoride contents influenced thermal characteristics when the characteristic temperatures of the individual glass was shifted towards higher values. The effect of the PbF2 content and the kind of rare earth impurity on the glass stability was observed. Absorption spectra of lanthanide-doped glasses were measured at room temperature and used to determine the phenomenological intensity parameters Ot and next, to estimate radiative properties of lanthanide ions in this matrix. Radiative transition probabilities of luminescent states of Ln3+, branching ratios and radiative lifetimes were determined. The variation of the Ot along the lanthanide series was presented and discussed.