Analysis of the physical, structural and optical characteristics of Dy3+-doped MgO–SrO–B2O3 glass systems

Abstract

Numerous studies have shown the interesting properties of trivalent lanthanide ions when doped in different types of glasses. This article examines the physical, structural and optical properties of series of strontium magnesium borate glasses doped with dysprosium ion (Dy3+) and synthesized using the melt-quenching technique. Physical and optical properties such as density, molar volume, ion concentration, molar refractivity, polaron radius, reflection loss, inter-nuclear distance and molar polarizability for each concentration of the dopant were calculated and reported. The results revealed diverse variations in density with other measured parameters. The amorphous behaviour of the glass samples was confirmed by X-ray diffraction spectroscopy. FTIR spectra measurements revealed the presence of various functional groups and their associated assignments. Optical properties of the activated glass samples with different concentrations of Dy3+ were determined by measuring the absorption and luminescence spectra in the visible region. The UV–Vis–NIR spectrophotometer analysis indicated the presence of eight inhomogeneous transition bands in various positions and intensities with hypersensitive transition at 1260 nm (6H15/2 → 6F11/2). The experimental oscillator strength (fexp) for each calculated absorption band showed higher magnitudes at hypersensitive transition. The optical energy band gap in the current work showed a decrease in values with increasing ion concentrations. The luminescence spectra of the prepared glass phosphors showed three unique transitions at 4F9/2 → 6H15/2 (490 nm), 4F9/2 → 6H13/2 (585 nm) and 4F9/2 → 6H11/2 (689 nm).