Optical characterization of Eu 3+ ion doped alkali oxide modified borosilicate glasses for red laser and display device applications

Abstract Alkali oxide modified borosilicate glasses, doped with Eu3+ ions with the chemical composition of 74.5 B2O3+10SiO2+5 MgO+R+0.5 Eu2O3 [where R=10 (LiO2/Na2O/K2O) for series A and R=5 (Li2O+Na2O/Li2O+K2O/K2O+Na2O) for series B] have been prepared using the conventional melt quenching technique. Moreover, the spectroscopic properties of the prepared glasses have been studied by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), optical absorption analysis, photoluminescence excitation (PLE) and Photoluminescence (PL) analysis. The red emission corresponding to the 5D0 →7F2 (614 nm) transition is registered under the excitation of 396 nm of the Eu3+ ions for all the prepared glasses. Based on the PLE and PL measurements, several spectroscopic properties were calculated, such as the fluorescence intensity ratio (R), Judd-Ofelt (J-O) intensity parameter (Ω2), peak emission wavelength ( λ P ), effective line width ( ∆ λ P ), radiative transition probabilities ( A R ), stimulated emission cross-section ( σ e ), experimental branching ratios ( β m ) and gain bandwidth parameters ( σ e × ∆ λ P ). The high values of σ e , β m A R for the 5D0→7F2 transition for our structures indicate that it may be a potential candidate for the red color center in display devices as well as a red emission laser with a wavelength of 614 nm.