Study of Physical and Optical Properties of Bismuth Boro-Tellurite Glasses Doped with Neodymium (Nd³⁺) Ions

Rare Earth (RE) doped bismuth boro-tellurite glasses are expected to exhibit compositional dependence in their physical and optical properties due to changes induced by variations in the electronic structure of the base glass with increasing Nd³⁺ content. A series of bismuth boro-tellurite glasses with composition 30Bi₂O₃:59-x B₂O₃:10TeO₂: x Nd₂O₃ (x= 0.5, 1.0, 1.5 molar %) were prepared using the melt-quench technique followed by 3 hours of annealing near the glass transition temperature. Using the Brewster’s Angle experiment, Archimedes Principle, and UV-VIS Spectroscopy, the refractive index, density, and optical absorption spectra of each sample was measured and analyzed to determine the impact of increasing Nd³⁺ on the physical and optical properties of these glasses. Preliminary analysis has shown minimal impact to the refractive index of host glass samples and an increase in the density of host glass samples with increasing Nd³⁺ content. Compositional dependence for the hyper sensitive band has been determined and the oscillator strengths have been calculated using the Judd-Ofelt theory.