Structural and Optical study of Erbium Doped Borophosphate Glasses

Borophosphate (BP) glass having composition of 50P(2)O(5 )- 10B(2)O(3 )- 20ZnO - 20PbO - xEr(2)O(3) in mole %, where x = (0, 0.005, 0.01, 0.015, 0.02, 0.025 wt. %) were prepared by the melt quench method. X-ray analysis was performed to confirm the amorphous structure of the glass network. All glasses exhibit good transparency as observed from the naked eye. UV-VIS-NIR absorption spectroscopy was performed between 300 nm-1600 nm to probe the absorption bands of prepared samples. Ten major absorption peaks were appeared due to the excitation from ground level I-4(15/2) to various excited states. The absorption spectrum was then used to calculate the direct and indirect band gap energy that lies within the range of 3.98 eV-4.32 eV and 3.86 eV-4.23 eV respectively. Refractive index and density were calculated in the range of 2.125-2.197 and 3.923-4.231 g/cm(3) respectively. Judd-Ofelt (JO) theory was applied to investigate the radiative properties. JO intensity parameters Omega(t) (t = 2, 4, 6) were calculated by least square fitting method. The result shows that studied samples are suitable candidates for green light emission solid-state laser device.