Spectroscopic investigations on Tb3+ doped lead fluoroborate glasses

This article presents the optical properties of Tb3+ in lead fluoroborate glasses of the type X PbF2 center dot (89-X)B2O3 center dot 10 Al2O3 center dot 1Tb(2)O(3) (where X=8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 28, 34 and 36). The standard Judd-Ofelt model was applied to the room temperature absorption intensities of Tb3+ (4 f(8)) to determine the phenomenological intensity parameters Omega(2), Omega(4) and Omega(6). These parameters have been used to calculate radiative transition probabilities (A(rad)), lifetimes (tau(R)) and branching ratios (beta(R)) for the excited level D-5(4). The predicted values of tau(R) are compared with the measured values for D-5(4) level for eight glass compositions (Glass (A-H)). Among the eight-terbium glasses Glass A with 8 mol% of PbF2 (as the optimum content) has revealed an intense green emission with maximum life time and higher quantum efficiency. The stimulated emission cross section sigma(lambda(P)) is also evaluated for the D-5(4)-> F-7(J) (J=6, 5, 4 and 3) transitions. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.