Influence of La2O3 on the structural, optical and thermal properties of TeO2-ZnO-Li2O-Nb2O5 glass

Developing the microstructure and enhancing the optical parameters of TeO2 based glass with rare earth for many applications in various domains are considered as a revolution in materials science and technology. Hence, we prepared glass 75TeO(2)-10ZnO-5Li(2)O-(10-x) Nb2O5-xLa(2)O(3) with x equal 0, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, 2.5 in mol% respectively by using melt-quench method. Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) measurements proved that the glasses transition temperature (T-g) increased with La2O3 concentration. The mean average value of the activation energy (E-c) for crystallization varies from 272 to 361 kJ.mol(-1) and 103 to 151 kJ.mol(-1) for the first and second crystalline phases respectively. Synthesizing nanocrystallization La2Te3 with 15 nm diameter of the prepared glass was studied by using X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD), and scanning electron microscope (SEM) techniques. The values for energy gap (E-g) and refractive index (n) of the prepared glass were determined by using UV-spectroscopy. The structure of the present glass was studied by using the deconvolution of the FTIR spectra.