Rare-earth ions doped transparent oxyfluoride glass-ceramics

Abstract

In recent years, rare-earth ions doped transparent oxyfluoride glass-ceramics have attracted great attentions for their low phonon energy environments of fluoride nanocrystals and high chemical and mechanical stabilities of oxide glassy matrix. In this chapter, firstly, the crystallization behaviors of the transparent glass ceramics containing CaF2 nanocrystals are presented to demonstrate the controllable microstructure evolution of nano-composites. Secondly, the optical properties of the newly developed transparent glass-ceramics containing β-YF3 nanocrystals are systematically reviewed. The rare-earth ions are inclined to partition into the YF3 nanocrystals after crystallization. Through variation of the rare-earth doping and control of the microstructures, the glass-ceramics could exhibit high-stimulated emission cross-section, broadband near infrared emission, high efficient ultraviolet upconversion emission and bright white light emission, indicating their potential multifunctional applications in solid state laser, upconversion, optical amplifier, three-dimensional display, and so on