Orange color emitting Sm3+ions doped borosilicate glasses for optoelectronic device applications

An intense orange color emitting Sm3+ activated Li2O-PbO-ZnO-Al2O3-B2O3-SiO2 (LPZABS) glasses were propitiously fabricated by using sudden quenching method to study the luminescent potentiality using spectroscopic techniques such as XRD, FT-IR, optical absorption, photoluminescence (PL) and PL decay. XRD and FTIR reveals the glassy nature and various functional groups present in LPZABS host glass respectively. Judd-Ofelt parameters derived from absorption spectra are used to estimate various radiative parameters for the excited states of Sm3+ ions in LPZABS glasses. Under 400 nm excitation, the luminescence spectra in the as prepared glasses exhibit three emission bands that corresponds to (4)G(5/2) -> H-6(5/2 )(562 nm), (4)G(5/2) -> H-6(7/2) (598 nm) and (4)G(5/2) -> H-6(9/2) (645 nm) transitions of Sm3+ ions. Among these three, (4)G(5/2) -> H-6(9/2) transition observed in orange region (598 nm) is relatively more intense and prominent. The PL decay curves recorded for (4)G(5/2) fluorescent level reveal exponential behavior and single exponential fitting is applied to evaluate the experimental lifetimes (tau(exp)). The tau(exp) values are found to be decreasing with Sm3+ ion content due to cross-relaxation energy transfer process. The results reveal that the as prepared glasses can be effectively used in fabricating intense visible orange color emitting optoelectronic devices.