Synthesis, thermal and photoluminescent properties of ZnSe- based oxyfluoride glasses doped with samarium

Rare earth (RE) doped glasses and glass ceramic materials have recently received considerable attention because of their potential or realized applications as X-ray intensifying screens, phosphors, detectors, waveguides, lasers etc. [1]. In this work, we present a new RE doped ZnO-ZnSe-SrF2-P2O5-B2O3-Sm2O3-SmF3 (ZSPB) glass system synthesized by melt quenching technique. The resulting glasses were visually fully transparent and stable with glass the transition temperatures around 530°C. The thermal properties of this glass system were characterized by Modulated Differential Scanning Calorimetry (MDSC) measurements before and after annealing at 650°C. We have characterized these glasses by Raman spectroscopy and photoluminescence (PL) measurements over the UV-VIS range using light emitting diodes (LED) and laser diodes (LD) excitation sources. We have also irradiated thermally treated and non-treated glass samples by X-rays and have studied the resulting PL. We discuss the results in terms of previously reported models for Sm-doped Zn-borophosphate oxide, oxyfluoride and oxyselenide glasses.