Emission properties of Er3+-doped Ge20Ga5Sb10Se65 glasses in near- and mid-infrared

In this work, we reported the fabrications and characterization of Er3+-doped Ge20Ga5Sb10Se65 glasses and glass-ceramics and measured their transmission and fluorescence spectra. The results showed that, the fluorecence intensity of the glasses increased until Er3+ concentration was up to ∼1.1 wt% Er, and then decreased with further increasing Er3+ concentration that was due to concentration quenching effect. While it was found that the mid- and far-infrared transmission did not decrease significantly in the glasses annealed at 310 °C for a duration up to 50 h, seven-folded enhancement in the intensity of mid-infrared fluorescence at 2.78 μm was observed. This demonstrated the potentials of the materials used for Er-doped amplifier and fiber laser.