Novel Process for Glass Formation: Aerosol Vapor Deposition with Applications to Gradient Index Lenses, Photorefractive Effects.

摘要

A new process has been developed for the synthesis of multi-component glasses. In this, a liquid aerosol of organometallic glass precursors is convectively transported into an oxygen rich region of high temperature. The liquid aerosol pyrolizes, or combusts to yield solid, multi-component ultra-small oxide particles. These particles are then thermophoretically deposited on a surface and subsequently sintered to form a vitreous, pore-free layer. (Morse, 1990, 1991) The advantage of this process, is that elements whose precursors have a low vapor pressure may be dissolved in the organometallic precursor that acts as a natural solvent (typically, TEOS, tetra-ethyl ortho-siloxane). This process is being applied to the fabrication of large GRIN lenses, and to optical fibers with glasses that exhibit larger nonlinearitiels. It is also being used to synthesize glasses that exhibit larger photorefractive effects....Glass formation, Aerosol vapor deposition, Gradient index lenses.