Physical and Optical Properties of Chromium-Doped Glass-Ceramics

摘要

The physical and optical properties of glass-ceramics containing transition metal ions are reported. Work centers on the mullite glass-ceramic family with chromium as the active center, although other hosts and dopants are considered. Crystallite structure, absorption spectra, and luminescent properties are examined for a wide range of precursor glass compositions. Detailed measurements of crystallite morphology and structure, absolute quantum efficiency, and scattering coefficients are made for two promising compositions as a function of heat treatment. For a specific heat treatment, one composition has a wavelength average quantum efficiency of 31% and a scattering coefficient at the wavelength of maximum luminescence emission of 0.04 cm sup -1 . Results of experiments to determine details of the microscopic environment of Cr in mullite glass-ceramics are presented. A computational analysis of the performance of luminescent solar concentrators based on mullite glass-ceramics is described, as are experiments using large pieces of the material which verify the validity of the analysis. (ERA citation 12:035234)