SiO2-SnO2:Er3+ Glass-Ceramic Monoliths (original) (raw)
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SiO2-SnO2:Er3+ Glass-Ceramic Monoliths
Applied Sciences
The development of efficient luminescent systems, such as microcavities, solid-state lasers, integrated optical amplifiers, and optical sensors is the main topic in glass photonics. The building blocks of these systems are glass-ceramics activated by rare-earth ions because they exhibit specific morphologic, structural, and spectroscopic properties. Among various materials that could be used as nanocrystals to be imbedded in a silica matrix, tin dioxide presents some interesting peculiarities, e.g., the presence of tin dioxide nanocrystals allows an increase in both solubility and emission of rare-earth ions. Here, we focus our attention on Er3+—doped silica—tin dioxide photonic glass-ceramics fabricated by a sol-gel route. Although the SiO2-SnO2:Er3+ could be fabricated in different forms, such as thin films, monoliths, and planar waveguides, we herein limit ourselves to the monoliths. The effective role of tin dioxide as a luminescence sensitizer for Er3+ ions is confirmed by spec...
EPJ Web of Conferences, 2021
This work presents state of the art rare-earth activated SnO2 nanocrystals - based transparent glass-ceramics. With combined enhancements in both photorefractivity and rare-earth photoluminescence, the glass-ceramic has unique benefits as a lasing material. It exhibits high photorefractivity with UV induced refractive index modifications in the order of 10-3. Exploiting its high photorefractivity, optical gratings are fabricated on the glass-ceramic under an energy-efficient direct UV writing process. Furthermore, SnO2 semiconductor nanocrystals are also employed as efficient rare-earth sensitizers enhancing drastically the rare-earth photoluminescence.
Enhanced fluorescence from Eu3+ in low-loss silica glass-ceramic waveguides with high SnO2 content
Applied Physics Letters, 2008
We report on the sol-gel fabrication and characterization of (100-x)SiO2-xSnO2 (x=8, 16, and 25 mol %) glass-ceramic waveguides doped with 1 mol % Eu3+. A suitable top-down thermal process led to the formation of SnO2 nanocrystals ~4 nm embedding Eu3+ ions. The excitation spectra evidence the role of interband electronic transition of SnO2 nanocrystals on the luminescence of Eu3+. Monitoring the 5D0-->7F2 Eu3+ emission, we observe about 15 times increase in the intensity of SnO2 absorption band, moving from x=8 to 25 mol %. These waveguides also exhibit low losses, making them quite promising for development of high-gain integrated optical amplifiers.