Fluorescence of erbium-doped silicate glasses

Abstract

Rare-earth doped glass is an active optoelectronic material. In particular, erbium (Er³⁺) doped glasses are technologically and commercially important for its numerous applications such as waveguide amplifiers, lightwave circuits and laser media. Several investigations have been reported on the optimization of the optical parameters of erbium-doped glass in relation to its glass host material and composition to yield favorable spectroscopic properties.
The most commonly studied doped glasses are the silicates. The lattice of erbium doped silicate glass is based on the structural units of silica tetrahedron serving as network formers. Alkali and alkaline earth metals are added as network modifiers to break the lattice for a looser network structure thus allowing more modest processing temperature. The network modifiers also facilitate the incorporation of erbium dopant ions into the glass system. The Er³⁺ transition energies are only slightly affected by the glass host environment. However, the transition rates are dependent on the host material.
This paper reports the spectroscopic studies done on erbium:silicate systems fabricated using the standard method of rapidly cooling the melt. The information regarding the optical excitation of the Er³⁺ ions was obtained from the absorption experiments. The fluorescence characteristics of Er³⁺ are studied through excitation at 488 nm and 543 nm.