Sulphide glasses doped with rare earth elements

Sulphide glasses of GeGaS and GeGaAsS systems doped with rare earth ions ar e promising materials for various photonic applications. Because the solubi lity of rare earth elements is influenced by the purity of host glass, name ly by OH group concentration, the attention has been paid to the preparatio n of highly pure and homogeneous undoped and rare earth doped glasses. Part icularly the systems Ge0.25Ga0.1-xS0.65Prx and Ge0.25Ga0.05xAs0.05S0.65Prx with x = 0.05, 0.1, 0.3 and 0.6 wt.% have been prepared. Synthesised materi al systems have been characterised by chemical and X-ray analysis, scanning electron microscopy, light scattering, Raman and low-temperature photolumi nescence spectroscopies. The optimal Pr concentration has been found to be around 0.1 wt.%, For higher Pr and OH group concentrations the constitution of clusters has been observed.