Optical and non-linear optical properties of Nd3+-doped heavy metal borate glasses

Inorganic glasses are suitable materials for fabricating active and passive photonic devices. In this work, glasses of composition 35MO-30Na2O-(35 − x)B2O3-xNd2O3 (MO = Bi2O3, PbO and x = 0, 1) have been prepared through the melt quenching method. In order to characterize the linear and non-linear optical properties, the Fourier Transform Infrared, optical absorption, photoluminescence and open aperture z-scan measurements have been performed. FTIR results show that the glasses have BO3, BO4 and non-bridging oxygens (NBO) as local structures, in addition to the [BiO3] units. Using the Judd-Ofelt theory the theoretical oscillator strengths have been calculated. Radiative properties indicate that these glasses are potential laser materials. Z-scan measurements reveal the occurrence of non-linear optical absorption, which is attributed to the presence of Bi3+ and Pb2+ ions in the glasses. It is found that in the transparency region, the non-linearity exhibited is that of the fifth order.