Optical properties of transparent Li2O-Ga2O3-SiO2 glass-ceramics embedding Ni-doped nanocrystals -: art. no. 131903

Transparent Li2O-Ga2O3-SiO2 (LGS) glass-ceramics embedding Ni:LiGa5O8 nanocrystals were fabricated. An intense emission centered around 1300 nm with the width of more than 300 nm was observed by 976 nm photoexcitation of the glass-ceramics. The lifetime was more than 900 mu s at 5 K and 500 mu s at 300 K. The emission could be attributed to the T-3(2g)(F-3) _--> (3)A(2g) (F-3) transition of W, in distorted octahedral sites in LiGa5O8. The product of stimulated emission cross section and lifetime for the emission was about 3.7 x 10(-24) cm(2) s and was a sufficiently practical value. (C) 2005 American Institute of Physics.