On the prospects of enhance glass based devices with silver nanoparticles: The case of Pr3+ doped tellurite-tungstate glasses

摘要

The development of enhanced optical devices relies on key materials properties. In this context, researchers have investigated the effects of metal nanoparticles incorporation in active rare-earth materials. Here, we discuss the effects of Silver nitrate addition (0.5%, 1.0% and 2.0% mol%) into Pr3+ doped tellurite-tungstate glasses (TWNN) formed by the conventional melt-quenching technique. We verified some improvement in thermal stability due Ag addition. In the absorption spectra the presence of a broadband around 500 nm indicates the presence of surface plasma resonance (SPR). By analysing the emission spectra, we have seen that at high codopant concentration the symmetry of Pr3+ site is being affected. Finally, by measuring the D-1(2) and P-3(0) lifetimes and the refractive index for samples annealed between 10 min and 20 h about similar to 50 degrees C below the glass transition temperature, we confirmed that some dynamics is taking place. The main possibility is that NPs keep growing at such temperature, affecting the polarizability and site symmetry. Pr3+ doped TWNN glass can have some transitions enhanced by the codoping scheme investigate here, as well some improvement in thermal stability. However, when fabricating a real device any additional annealing or even the temperature during operation may play a role in its performance. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.