Optical properties of transparent Li2O–Ga2O3–SiO2 glass-ceramics embedding Ni-doped nanocrystals

Abstract

Transparent Li2O–Ga2O3–SiO2 (LGS) glass-ceramics embedding Ni:LiGa5O8 nanocrystals were fabricated. An intense emission centered around 1300nm with the width of more than 300nm was observed by 976nm photoexcitation of the glass-ceramics. The lifetime was more than 900μs at 5K and 500μs at 300K. The emission could be attributed to the T2g3(F3)→A2g3(F3) transition of Ni2+ in distorted octahedral sites in LiGa5O8. The product of stimulated emission cross section and lifetime for the emission was about 3.7×10−24cm2s and was a sufficiently practical value.