Better understanding of the role of SiO2, P2O5 and Al2O3 on the spectroscopic properties of Yb3Â + doped silica sol-gel glasses

Yb3 + doped silica sol-gel glass powders were prepared with different concentrations of SiO2, Al2O3 and P2O5 in order to understand the impact of the glass composition on the Yb3 + emission properties. In this paper, we clearly show that not only the Al/P ratio but also the SiO2 content have an impact on the Yb3 + spectroscopic properties. Our results provide new insight on the real impact of the composition on the spectroscopic properties of Yb3 + doped sol-gels: we demonstrate that an increase in the Al2O3 content at the expense of P2O5 leads to an increase in the intensity of the emission at 1000 nm of the Yb3 + ions whereas an increase in the SiO2 content decreases it. We clearly showed that the inexpensive sol-gel approach can be easily used when investigating new Yb3 + doped silica glasses.