Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy & Radiative Transfer 147 (2014) 6370

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy &

Radiative Transfer
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jqsrt

Spectroscopic properties and external quantum yield

of Sm3 doped germanotellurite glasses
F. Wang a, B.J. Chen b, H. Lin a,b,n, E.Y.B. Pun b
a
b

School of Textile and Material Engineering, Dalian Polytechnic University, Dalian 116034, China
Department of Electronic Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

a r t i c l e i n f o

abstract

Article history:
Received 23 October 2013
Received in revised form
9 May 2014
Accepted 15 May 2014
Available online 27 May 2014

Sm3 doped germanotellurite glasses (NZPGT) with maximum phonon energy of

793 cm  1 have been prepared and characterized. JuddOfelt parameters t (t 2, 4, 6)
have been calculated to be 3.52  10  20, 4.70  10  20 and 1.90  10  20 cm2, respectively.
Large value of 2 indicates a high asymmetry and covalent environment around Sm3 in
the glass system. The maximum stimulated emission cross-section of the dominant
transition 4G5/2-6H9/2 peaking at 645.0 nm was derived to be 10.00  10  22 cm2,
predicting that the red fluorescence emission can be efficiently extracted from the optical
glasses. The internal quantum efficiency and external quantum yield of 0.4 wt% Sm2O3
doped NZPGT glasses were deduced to be 82.5% and 6.0%, respectively. The results
demonstrate that Sm3 doped NZPGT glasses are a potential candidate for developing
tunable visible lasers, compact light sources and solid-state display devices.
& 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Sm3
Germanotellurite glasses
JO intensity parameters
External quantum yield

1. Introduction
Over the past decades, rare earth (RE) ions have been
extensively investigated in various host matrices due to
their important roles in developing various optoelectronic
devices such as optical sensors, phosphors, lasers, solar
cells, and optical amplifiers [17]. Among the trivalent RE
ions with 4f n electronic configuration, Sm3 emits strong
orangish-red luminescence in the visible region which are
attractive in color displays, visible solid-state lasers and
photodynamic therapy (PDT) light sources owing to its
emitting 4G5/2 level exhibiting relative high internal quantum efficiency and multi-fluorescence channels [811].
Among oxide glasses, tellurite glasses, especially containing heavy metal oxides (HMO) such as Ga2O3, Nb2O5,
WO3, Ta2O5, PbO, La2O3, and Bi2O3 [1220], have arisen
great interest because of their higher refractive indices and

n
Corresponding author at: School of Textile and Material Engineering,
Dalian Polytechnic University, Dalian 116034, China. Tel.: 86 41186323097.
E-mail address: lhai8686@yahoo.com (H. Lin).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jqsrt.2014.05.014
0022-4073/& 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

lower maximum phonon energies. In addition, tellurite

glasses possess a reasonably wide transmittance region
(0.35 5 m), and have excellent RE ion solubility and
significant non-linear effect [2124] for developing RE
doped optical materials.
Although tellurite glasses exhibit weak mechanical
strength and low thermal stability for developing high
quality optical fibers, they can be improved by adding
various glass network formers. With the addition of GeO2,
tellurite glasses are expected to possess higher thermal
stability and stronger mechanical strength for fiber drawing. In addition, the introduction of HMO will increase the
density and the refractive index of optical glasses, resulting
in larger stimulated emission cross-section and higher
radiative quantum efficiency [25].
In this work, Sm3 doped germanotellurite glasses
have been prepared and characterized. JO intensity parameters t (t 2, 4, 6), spontaneous transition probabilities
Arad, fluorescence branching ratios ij, calculated radiative
lifetime rad and maximum emission cross-sections sem
were calculated, and internal quantum efficiency and
external quantum yield were derived. The results indicate

64

F. Wang et al. / Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy & Radiative Transfer 147 (2014) 6370

that Sm3 doped NZPGT glasses possess potential for

developing tunable visible lasers, compact light sources
and solid-state display devices.
2. Experiments
Sm3 doped germanotellurite (NZPGT) glasses were
prepared from high-purity Na2CO3, ZnO, PbO, GeO2 and
TeO2 powders according to the molar host composition 14Na2O 10ZnO 7PbO 19GeO2  50TeO2. Additional
0.04 wt%, 0.2 wt%, 0.4 wt% and 1.2 wt% Sm2O3 powders were
doped into NZPGT glass composition based on the host
weight. Firstly, the raw materials were well ground in an
agate mortar and preheated in pure Pt crucibles at 270 1C for
3 h. Subsequently, the glass melts were wobbled every ten
minutes when heated at 880 1C for 30 min and finally
quenched in a preheated aluminum mold. The obtained glass
samples were immediately annealed at 270 1C for 3 h to
remove residual stress, and slowly cooled down to room temperature. For optical measurements, the annealed glass samples were sliced and polished into pieces with parallel sides.
The Raman spectrum of NZPGT host glasses was obtained
by a Perkin-Elmer spectrum 2000 NIR FT-Raman spectrophotometer. The differential thermal analysis (DTA) scan was
carried out by a WCR-2D differential thermal analyzer at a rate
of 15 1C/min from room temperature to 900 1C. The density of
0.4 wt% Sm2O3 doped NZPGT glasses was deduced to be
5.090 g cm  3 by the Archimedes method. The refractive
indices were measured to be 1.9292 at 632.8 nm and 1.8848
at 1536 nm using a Metricon 2010 prism coupler. The
refractive indices at all the other wavelengths can be solved
by Cauchy's equation n A B=2 [26] with A1.8757 and
B21414 nm2 for the coming JuddOfelt (JO) analysis. The
absorption spectrum was detected by a Perkin-Elmer UVvis
NIR Lambda 19 double beam spectrophotometer. The excitation and emission spectra were measured using a Jobin Yvon
Fluorolog-3 spectrophotometer equipped with an R928
photomultiplier (PMT) tube as detector and a CW Xe-lamp
as pump source. The spectral power distributions were
measured using a 30 cm diameter integrating sphere
equipped with an Ocean Optics USB4000 CCD detector
connected by a 400 m-core optical fiber. The current and
voltage of the commercial blue LED as a pump source were
fixed at 20 mA and 3.22 V, respectively. A standard halogen
lamp (EVERFINED062) was adopted to calibrate this measurement system and its spectral power distribution was obtained
through fitting the factory data based on the blackbody
radiation law. The blue LED pump source was rounded by
black tape except that the emitting surface was mounted in
the integrating sphere. Fig. 1 presents the schematic diagram
of the experimental setup for external quantum yield measurement. All pictures were taken with a Sony SLT-200
digital camera.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Phonon energy and thermal property
The transparency spectrum is presented in Fig. 2(a)
and the transparency is approximately 80% in wavelength range of 530  800 nm, which exhibits a good

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the experimental setup for external quantum yield measurement.

transparency for the characteristic emission bands of

Sm3 ions. Fig. 2(b) shows the Raman spectrum of NZPGT
host glasses, in which the highest energy band of the
Raman spectrum was revolved into three sub-bands and
the maximum phonon energy was deduced to be
793 cm  1. The maximum phonon energy is ascribed to
stretching vibration of the TeOeq bond in the TeeqOaxTe
linkage [27], in which the subscripts eq and ax denote
equatorial and axial, respectively.
Fig. 2(c) presents the DTA curve of 0.2 wt% Sm2O3 doped
NZPGT glasses. The transition temperature Tg, the crystallization onset temperature Tx and the crystallization temperature Tc were derived to be 297, 396 and 416 1C, respectively.
Generally, thermal stability range T (TTx Tg) of core and
cladding glasses should be as large as possible to obtain wide
operating temperature range and avoid crystallization for fiber
fabrication. Here, the T of 0.2 wt% Sm2O3 doped NZPGT
glasses was derived to be 99 1C, larger than 44 1C of
ZnO TeO2 glasses [28], indicating that the introduction of
GeO2 can improve the thermal stability and the mechanical
strength of tellurite glasses for fiber drawing [2931].
3.2. Absorption spectrum and Judd-Ofelt analysis
The absorption spectrum of 0.4 wt% Sm2O3 doped NZPGT
glasses and the f-f transitions originating from the ground
state 6H5/2 to the various excited states of Sm3 are shown in
the Fig. 3. The absorption bands are divided into the highenergy group (360 600 nm) and the low-energy group
(900 2200 nm). The transition bands locating at highenergy group overlap because the different 2s 1LJ levels are
closely spaced. The observed absorption bands of the lowenergy group centered at 946.5, 1083.0, 1235.5, 1385.5, 1490.0,
1552.0, 1594.5 and 1962.0 nm are assigned to the absorption
transitions from the ground state level 6H5/2 to the excited
state levels 6F11/2, 6F9/2, 6F7/2, 6F5/2, 6F3/2, 6H15/2, 6F1/2 and 6H13/2,
respectively.
The experimental oscillator strengths Pexp of the
absorption transitions can be obtained by integrating each
absorption band through the following formula:
Z
2:303me c2 Ev
dv;
P exp
1
2
d
e N

F. Wang et al. / Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy & Radiative Transfer 147 (2014) 6370

65

Fig. 2. (a) Transparency spectrum of 0.4 wt% Sm2O3 doped NZPGT glasses with a thickness of 2.63 mm. (b) Raman spectrum of NZPGT host glasses. (c) DTA
curve of 0.2 wt% Sm2O3 doped NZPGT glasses.

Fig. 3. Absorption spectrum of 0.4 wt% Sm2O3 doped NZPGT glasses.

where me is the static mass of electron, c is the velocity of

light in vacuum, Ev is the absorbance, v is the wavenumber, d is the sample thickness, e is the charge of electron
and N is the number density of RE ions.
The calculated oscillator strengths Pcal were obtained
by subtracting the magnetic-dipole contributions Pmd from
the experimental oscillator strengths Pexp. The magneticdipole contributions Pmd were deduced from the equation
P md nP 0 , where n is the refractive index of the glass
samples and P 0 is a value calculated based on the energy

level parameters for lanthanide aquo ions [32]. The

derived values Pexp and Pcal were listed in Table 1 and
the root-mean-square deviation rms between the experimental and calculated oscillator strengths was solved to be
9.8  10  8, indicating that the JO parameters obtained in
the present work are reliable.
The JuddOfelt (JO) intensity parameters t (t2, 4, 6)
are important to investigate the local structure and bonding
in the vicinity of rare earth ions. The 2 parameter has been
deemed to be associated with the asymmetry and the
covalency between RE ions and ligand ions. The 4,6 parameters depend on the rigidity and the bulk property of the
media, and the vibronic transitions of the RE ions bound to
the ligand atoms [33]. Here, the t (t2, 4, 6) parameters of
Sm3 in NZPGT glasses were derived to be 3.52  10  20,
4.70  10  20 and 1.90  10  20 cm2, respectively. The squared
reduced matrix elements in intermediate coupling approximation for Sm3 were taken from Ref. [32]. The ratio 4/6
can be used to predict the stimulated emission cross-section
for laser active media [34]. For comparison, the JO intensity
parameters t and the ratio 4/6 of Sm3 in various glasses
[3544] were listed in Table 2.
The 2 parameter of Sm3 in NZPGT glasses is larger
than those of tellurite, boro-tellurite, borate and phosphate glasses, indicating a high asymmetry and covalent
environment around Sm3 in the glass system. Large value
of 4/6 demonstrates the optical glasses are potential RE
doped laser materials. Using the t values, spontaneous
transition probabilities Arad, fluorescence branching ratios
ij and calculated radiative lifetime rad were calculated

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F. Wang et al. / Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy & Radiative Transfer 147 (2014) 6370

Table 1
Experimental and calculated oscillator strengths of Sm3 in NZPGT glasses.
Transition from 6H5/2 to

Energy (cm  1)

Pexp (10  6)

Ped-cal (10  6)

10,565
9234
8094
7236
6693
5097

0.331
2.398
3.908
3.497
4.049
0.287

0.355
2.284
4.002
3.460
4.052
0.215

F11/2
F9/2
F7/2
6
F5/2
6
F3/2, 6H15/2, 6F1/2
6
H13/2
6
6

Pmd-cal (10  6)

Root mean square rms (10  8)

9.8

0.0015
0.0004

Table 2
JO intensity parameters t (10  20 cm2) and the ratio 4/6 of Sm3 in various glass systems.
Glass system

4/6

Ref.

PbO  GeO2  TeO2

PbF2  WO3  TeO2
CaO BaO  SrO  P2O5
KF K2O  BaO Al2O3  P2O5
Li2O  AlF3  TeO2  B2O3
CaF2  CaO  BaO Al2O3  B2O3
K2O CaO  ZnO  TeO2
NaF CaO ZnO  PbO  B2O3
PbO  Nb2O5  P2O5
Na2O Al2O3  LaF3  SiO2
Na2O ZnO  PbO  GeO2  TeO2

0.73
1.30
1.37
1.50
1.61
1.92
2.48
3.29
3.42
4.97
3.52

4.56
3.08
2.77
3.75
3.53
6.35
2.99
9.16
2.80
4.16
4.70

2.05
1.54
1.58
1.89
1.79
3.44
1.82
5.28
1.85
3.14
1.90

2.22
2.00
1.75
1.98
1.97
1.84
1.64
1.73
1.51
1.32
2.47

[35]
[36]
[37]
[38]
[39]
[40]
[41]
[42]
[43]
[44]
This work

Table 3
Spontaneous transition probabilities Arad, fluorescence branching ratios ij, and calculated radiative lifetime rad of Sm3 in NZPGT glasses.
Transition from 4G5/2 to

Energy (cm  1)

Aed (s  1)

Amd (s  1)

Arad (s  1)

ij (%)

rad (ms)

7313
8644
9784
10,660
11,167
11,435
11,606
12,781
14,300
15,634
16,844
17,878

0.44
4.14
6.24
32.38
4.87
0.46
4.45
7.46
70.30
241.30
236.77
19.29

0
0
2.06
6.63
9.78
0
0
0
0
0
24.31
29.01

0.44
4.14
8.30
39.01
14.65
0.46
4.45
7.46
70.30
241.30
261.08
48.30

0.06
0.59
1.19
5.57
2.09
0.07
0.64
1.07
10.04
34.48
37.30
6.90

1.43

F11/2
F9/2
F7/2
6
F5/2
6
F3/2
6
H15/2
6
F1/2
6
H13/2
6
H11/2
6
H9/2
6
H7/2
6
H5/2
6
6

and listed in Table 3. The total luminescence branching

ratio of 4G5/2-6H9/2 (34.5%) and 4G5/2-6H7/2 (37.3%)
accounts for 71.8%, predicting that efficient orangish-red
and red fluorescence emissions can be extracted from the
optical glasses.

3.3. Emission spectrum and radiative properties

As depicted in Fig. 4, the emission spectrum of 0.2 wt%
Sm2O3 doped NZPGT glasses presents four bands peaking
at 562.0, 598.5, 645.0 and 707.5 nm assigned to the
transitions 4G5/2-6H5/2, 4G5/2-6H7/2, 4G5/2-6H9/2 and
4
G5/2-6H11/2, respectively. The four fluorescence emission
bands range from 540 to 740 nm with complete peak
shapes.
The stimulated emission cross-sections were derived from
the emission spectrum using the FchtbauerLadenburg

Fig. 4. Emission spectrum of 0.2 wt% Sm2O3 doped NZPGT glasses under
405.0 nm excitation. Inset: emission cross-section profiles.

F. Wang et al. / Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy & Radiative Transfer 147 (2014) 6370

formula:
sem

Aij 5 ij Iij
R
;
8cn2 ij Iij d

where Aij, ij and I(ij) are the radiation transition probability, the wavelength and the emission intensity from i to
j state, respectively. c is the light speed in vacuum and n is
the refractive index. Large stimulated emission crosssections are attractive features for low-threshold and
high-gain laser applications [45].
Here, the derived stimulated emission cross-section
profiles are shown in the inset of Fig. 4, and the maximum
stimulated emission cross-sections sem-max originating
from the transitions 4G5/2-6H5/2, 4G5/2-6H7/2, 4G5/26
H9/2 and 4G5/2-6H11/2 were deduced to be 1.54 
10  22, 8.59  10  22, 10.00  10  22 and 2.98  10  22 cm2,
respectively. For comparison, the sem-max values of Sm3
in various glasses [9,35,38,42,4649] are listed in Table 4.
The sem-max of the dominant transition 4G5/2-6H9/2
peaking at 645.0 nm for Sm3 doped NZPGT glasses is
larger than those of Sm3 doped K2O LiF  ZnF2 
Al2O3  P2O5 (9.05  10  22 cm2) [48], Na2O  K2O PbF2 
Al2O3  P2O5
(9.18  10  22 cm2)
[49]
and
ZnO
SrO  Nb2O5  TeO2  B2O3 glasses (9.67  10  22 cm2) [46],
predicting that the red fluorescence emission can be
efficiently extracted from the optical glasses for potential
laser applications.
Fig. 5 presents the measured fluorescence decay curves
of 0.04 wt%, 0.2 wt%, 0.4 wt% and 1.2 wt% Sm2O3 doped
NZPGT glasses monitoring at 598.5 nm under 405.0 nm
excitation and the experimental fluorescence lifetimes exp
of the 4G5/2 level of Sm3 were determined to be 1.33, 1.27,
1.18 and 0.90 ms, respectively. The four fluorescence decay
curves are approximately single-exponential and the
lower the Sm2O3 doping concentration, the better the
fluorescence decay curve single-exponential fitted.
The internal quantum efficiencies q (q exp =rad ) for
0.04 wt%, 0.2 wt%, 0.4 wt% and 1.2 wt% Sm2O3 doped
NZPGT glasses were solved to be 93.0%, 88.8%, 82.5% and
62.9%, respectively. The reduction in the q can be attributed to the non-radiative (NR) processes including multiphonon relaxation (MPR) and energy transfer (ET).
According to the MiyakawaDexter theory, the MPR rate
WMPR can be expressed by W MPR W 0 exp  E=,
where W0, , E and are the decay rate when E0, the
positive host-dependent constant, the energy gap to the next
lower level and the phonon energy of the host, respectively.

67

The energy gap between the 4G5/2 level and the next lower
level 6F11/2 is approximately 7400 cm  1 and requires at least 9
intrinsic phonons to bridge the interval in the MPR process,
which can be negligible in Sm3 doped NZPGT glasses.
Therefore, the ET process is the dominant factor leading the
depopulation of the 4G5/2 level for Sm3 , and the ET rate WET
can be estimated by the formula W ET 1=exp 1=rad 
W MPR  1=exp 1=rad : The WET for 0.04 wt%, 0.2 wt%,
0.4 wt% and 1.2 wt% Sm2O3 doped NZPGT glasses were solved
to be 52.6, 88.1, 148.2 and 411.8 s  1, respectively. With the
increase of doping concentration of Sm2O3, the exp decreases
and the WET increases owing to more Sm3 ions involved in
ET processes.
3.4. Excitation spectrum and excitated state analysis
As shown in Fig. 6, the excitation spectrum of 0.2 wt%
Sm2O3 doped NZPGT glasses monitoring at 598.5 nm
exhibits a broad excitation wavelength region of
340 500 nm, indicating that near-UV/violet/blue lasers
and LEDs together with Ar lasers can be used as efficient
pump sources for the optical glasses. The inset of Fig. 6
shows the partial energy level diagram of Sm3 . Taking
405.0 nm excitation for example, Sm3 ions lying at the
ground state 6H5/2 are firstly pumped to the excited state
4
F7/2, then depopulated to the metastable state 4G5/2
through multiphonon relaxation process due to the closely
spaced energy states between them, finally resulting in
multichannel visible and NIR emission transitions, i.e. 4G5/2
-6H5/2 (562.0 nm), 4G5/2-6H7/2 (598.5 nm), 4G5/2-6H9/2
(645.0 nm) and 4G5/2-6H11/2 (707.5 nm).
3.5. Quantitative characterization and analysis on external
quantum yield
In order to essentially reveal the absolute spectral
property of visible fluorescence for 0.4 wt% Sm2O3 doped
NZPGT glasses, spectral power distributions P shown in
Fig. 7(a) were recorded using the integrating sphere
method with commercial blue LED as pump source when
the glass sample with a dimensions of 0.898  0.882 
0.308 cm3 was located on and aside the LED pump source,
denoted by Pon and Pside respectively.
Radiant flux of the luminescence can be calculated by
R
P d: The radiant flux of 0.4 wt% Sm2O3 doped
NZPGT glasses under the blue LED excitation with peak
excitation wavelength at 456 nm was derived to be

Table 4
Maximum emission cross-sections sem-max (10  22 cm2) of Sm3 in various glasses.
Glass system

G5/2-6H5/2

ZnO  SrO  Nb2O5  TeO2  B2O3

CdO  Bi2O3  B2O3
Na2O  CaF2  AlF3  LaF3  B2O3
K2O  KF BaO  Al2O3  P2O5
K2O  LiF  ZnF2  Al2O3  P2O5
Na2O  K2O PbF2  Al2O3  P2O5
NaF CaO  ZnO  PbO  B2O3
PbO  GeO2  TeO2
Na2O  ZnO  PbO  GeO2  TeO2

0.64
0.65
0.96
0.99
1.14
1.17
1.20
1.57
1.54

G5/2-6H7/2

G5/2-6H9/2

G5/2-6H11/2

10.00
6.95
4.90
5.92
9.35
8.98
12.60
9.21
8.59

9.67
3.29
4.63
4.49
9.05
9.18
8.30
6.73
10.00

4.13
2.62
1.86
2.08
3.04
3.16
4.70
4.14
2.98

Ref.
[46]
[47]
[9]
[38]
[48]
[49]
[42]
[35]
This work

68

F. Wang et al. / Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy & Radiative Transfer 147 (2014) 6370

Fig. 5. Measured fluorescence decay curves of 0.04 wt% (a), 0.2 wt% (b), 0.4 wt% (c) and 1.2 wt% (d) Sm2O3 doped NZPGT glasses monitoring at 598.5 nm
and under 405.0 nm excitation.

Luminous flux v is spectral radiant flux weighted by

the appropriate eye response function and the definition of
luminous flux for the photopic CIE standard observer is
expressed by
Z
v K m P Vd;
3
where Km is the luminous efficacy for photopic vision and
V() is the spectral luminous efficiency function. The
spectral luminous efficacy is defined near the maximum,
m 555 nm, of the photopic efficiency function to be
approximately 683 lm W  1 [50]. In visible spectral region
ranging from 380 to 780 nm, the total luminous flux was
solved to be 0.42 lm.
Based on spectral power distribution, photon distribution Nv can be derived by

Fig. 6. Excitation spectrum of 0.2 wt% Sm2O3 doped NZPGT glasses

monitoring at 598.5 nm emission. Inset: energy level diagram of Sm3 .

9.29 mW in wavelength range of 380  780 nm when the

glass sample was located on the LED pump source. The
total radiant flux of the LED was calculated to be 11.31 mW
when the glass sample was located aside the LED pump
source. In fluorescence emission wavelength range of
550  750 nm, the radiant flux was solved to be 161 W.

Nv

3
P ;
hc

where v is the wavenumber, is the wavelength, P is

spectral power distribution, h is the Planck constant and c
is the vacuum light velocity. The corresponding Non and
Nside can be derived from Eq. (4) with spectral power
distributions Pon and Pside, respectively. The derived
photon distributions, Non and Nside, of 0.4 wt% Sm2O3
doped NZPGT glasses were depicted in Fig. 7(b).
External quantum yield (QY) is being used as a selection
criterion for luminesce materials for potential applications

F. Wang et al. / Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy & Radiative Transfer 147 (2014) 6370

69

Fig. 8. Net absorption and emission photon distribution of 0.4 wt%

Sm2O3 doped NZPGT glasses. Inset: detail of photon distribution in
wavenumber range of 13,200  18,600 cm  1.

4. Conclusions

Fig. 7. Spectral power distributions (a) and photon distributions (b) of

0.4 wt% Sm2O3 doped NZPGT glasses. (Pon, curve 1 in (a); Pside,
curve 2 in (a); Non, curve 3 in (b); Nside, curve 4 in (b)). Inset of (a):
detail of spectral power distribution curve 1 in wavelength range of
510  750 nm. Inset of (b): detail of photon distribution curve 3 in
wavenumber range of 19,420  13,350 cm  1.

Sm3 doped germanotellurite glasses with maximum

phonon energy of 793 cm  1 have been prepared and
characterized. JuddOfelt parameters t (t2, 4, 6) have
been calculated to be 3.52  10  20, 4.70  10  20 and
1.90  10  20 cm2, respectively. The 2 parameter of
Sm3 in NZPGT glasses is larger than those of tellurite,
boro-tellurite, borate and phosphate glasses, demonstrating a high asymmetry and covalent environment around
Sm3 in the optical glasses. The maximum stimulated
emission cross-section sem-max of the dominant transition
4
G5/2-6H9/2 centered at 645.0 nm was derived to be
10.00  10  22 cm2, predicting that the red fluorescence
emission can be efficiently extracted from the optical
glasses. The external quantum yield was deduced to 6.0%.
The results indicate that Sm3 doped NZPGT glasses hold
great promise for developing tunable visible lasers, compact light sources, and solid-state display devices.

in solid-state lighting and is defined as the ratio of

emitted photon numbers to absorbed photon numbers
[51]. Namely,

Acknowledgments

QY jEon  Eside j=jLon Lside j;

This work was supported by the National Natural

Science Foundation of China (61275075) and the Science
and Technology Foundation of Liaoning Province, China
(201202011).

where Eon and Eside were emitted photon numbers from the
sample, Lon and Lside were recorded photon numbers
emitted from the LED pump source when the sample was
located on and aside the LED pump source, respectively. |
Lon  Lside| and |Eon Eside| are net absorption and emission
photon numbers, respectively, evaluated by integrating the
net absorption and emission photon distribution as shown
in Fig. 8. The net absorption and emission photon distribution of 0.4 wt% Sm2O3 doped NZPGT glasses was derived by
subtracting the Nside component from the Non component
and the QY was calculated to be 6.0%.

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