Absorption features and luminescence enhancement of tellurite glass embedded with metallic nanoparticles

Abstract

This presentation provides a panoramic overview of the recent progress in nanoglass plasmonics, challenges, excitement, applied interests and the future promises. Enhanced optical properties of rare earth (RE) doped glasses for sundry applications are current challenges in materials science and technology. Nanoparticles (NPs) dispersed up-converted (UC) glasses seem to be the ideal candidates in terms of both efficiency and large area coverage provided the absorption cross-section be enhanced. The glasses containing gold NPs (AuNPs) and silver NPs (AgNPs) doped with optimum concentration of RE ions are of particular interest to us. We report the influence of embedded NPs on the luminescence and absorbance characteristics of RE ions doped tellurite glass prepared by melt-quenching method. The absorption and emission spectra displays several prominent peaks corresponding to the transitions from the ground state to the excited states of RE ion. The observed efficient enhancement of up-conversion emissions and absorbance in the entire visible region is attributed to strong localized electric field in vicinity of NPs. Improvements of radiative emissions suggests that the proposed glasses are potential for the development of solid state lasers, color displays and nanophotonic devices.