Physical and Optical Studies of Bi3+-Modified Erbium Doped Tellurite Glasses

Er3+-doped tellurite glasses with various compositions (in mol%): 54TeO(2)-(41-x)ZnO-xBi(2)O(3)-2Na(2)O-3Er(2)O(3)(x = 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5) were prepared with melt quenching method. Studies was aimed at investigating the effect of Bi3+ ion content on the physical and optical properties of the glasses. The density, refractive index, optical absorption, and optical energy band gap measurements were carried out at room temperature using pycnometer, Brewster angle method, and UV-VIS-NIR spectrophotometer, respectively. From the experiment, it was shown that the density and refractive index of the glasses increased with the increase of Bi3+ ions concentration. The absorption band intensity of electronic transition from I-4(15/2) to H-4(11/2) exhibited an increase as the Bi3+ ions concentration increase suggesting that incorporating Bi3+ ions into this glasses might improve the pumping efficiency.