Structural and luminescence properties of zinc antimony borophosphate glass doped with rare-earth ions

Abstract

A quaternary system of borophosphate glasses formulated with zinc and antimony were prepared in three series, namely series A, series B and series C. All the samples in each series were prepared using melt quenching technique followed by annealing at 350oC for 1 hour. The best composition in Series A [10P2O5–40B2O3–(50-x)Sb2O3–(x)ZnO] (10 = x = 50) in terms of stability and transparency, was selected for preparation of Series B [10P2O5–40B2O3–40Sb2O3–10ZnO–1 RE] (RE=Sm3+/Eu3+/Er3+/Nd3+), in order to study the effect of the different dopand ions to the molecular structure and luminescent properties of the glass system. Series C of [10P2O5–40B2O3–40Sb2O3–10ZnO–(x)Sm2O3] (0.5 = x = 2.0) was prepared to study the effect of samarium concentration on the luminescence properties. The XRD results showed that the crystalline phase of the glass changed with different amount of zinc and antimony substitution. Crystalline phase was observed for sample containing more than 30 mol % of zinc oxide. Result of IR spectroscopy indicated that ZnO affected the basic coupling units of P-O bond and Sb3+ ions entered the glass system by breaking up the B-O-B bonds. The modification of zinc antimony borophosphate glasses with rare earth was studied and showed that the presence of rare earth ion in the glass system did not change the structural features. Among various rare earth, Eu3+ and Sm3+ showed the strongest luminescence intensity. The luminescence intensity of Sm doped glass changed in no specific pattern when the concentration, x increased from 0.5 to 2.0 mol %. The samarium doped glass showed intense luminescence with a very sharp peak dominated by the 4G5/2 ?6H7/2 transition at 590 nm.