Processing and optical characterization of lead calcium titanate borosilicate glass doped with germanium

In this study, various compositions of lead calcium titanate borosilicate glass doped with a fixed amount of germanium were synthesized using the rapid melt quench technique. The amorphous nature of the synthesized glass was confirmed by X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy analyses. The structural and optical properties were deduced using Raman, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), and ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) spectroscopy. FTIR spectroscopy confirmed the presence of borate groups in triangular and tetrahedral coordination. Infrared and Raman analyses detected the vibrational bonds of GeOGe, BOGe, SiOGe, SiOSi, and PbOGe. The energy band gaps were evaluated for the prepared glass samples based on Tauc plots of the UV-Vis spectra. The calculated values of the optical band gap decreased from 2.91 to 2.85 eV as the PbO content increased from x = 0.0 to x = 0.7. Furthermore, the Urbach energy was studied based on the UV-Vis results to confirm the disordered structure of the glass. The calculated densities of the glass samples (1.5835 g/cm3 to 3.9184 g/cm3) increased as the concentration of PbO increased, whereas they decreased with the molar volume.