Preparation and characterization of photonic glasses

Preparation and characterization of photonic glassesDr. D. SREENIVASUAssistant professorU C S Saifabad O U HyderabadRare earth ion doped TeO2 and GeO2 glasses(1) for laser materials. Telurite glasses doped with heavy metal oxides or rare earth oxides have received great scientific interest because these oxides can change the optical and physical properties of the base glass. The glass optical fibers could efficiently amplify light signals upto 10,000 times in fiber lasrs. The active gain medium is a simple mode optical fiber doped with rare earth elements.

INTERDICIPLINARY RELAVENCEPhotonic glasses are made using inorganic materials like tellurium oxide, germanium oxide, boric acid, rare earth oxides and other metal oxides. All these materials must be having chemical properties and their mixture when heated to higher temperatures in the range of 800-1000oC and quenched suddenly to form the glasses and they are annealed to remove stress and strain inside the glasses. These glasses are used as fiber guided medium, optical switches, fiber amplifiers, optical sources and optical rotators. Therefore the study of these photonic glasses has interdisciplinary relevance such as physics, chemistry, material science, optics, communication engineering. The various properties of these photonic glasses are studied using IR. FT-IR, DSC, UV-Vis spectroscopy, ESR, AC conductivity studies etc. Thus thic topic has much interdisciplinary relevance.

ObjectivesPreparation of different composition TeO2, ZnO doped with rare earth oxides glass samples and quenching them applying magnetic field.Study of various properties and also to study the non linear properties of prepared glass samples.

MethodologyPreparation of glass samples with different compositions using melt quenching technique. While quenching magnetic field is applied and annealed below the glass transition temperature.Study of non linear properties and spectroscopic properties using various instrumental techniques and powdered and polished samples.

Equipment: Different experimental studies (FTIR, XRD, SEM, NMR, DSC, conductivity and Hall Effect) which are available in our laboratory are performed on these nano composites to establish their morphological, thermal, and electrical properties. Other Infrastructural facilities: Recently our laboratory procured Photo-elastic constant instrument to study the mechanical properties of different materials.