Efficient manipulation of 2.0 µm mid-infrared luminescence in silicate glass by structural engineering

Increasing the number of luminescence emitters without concentration quenching is essential to realize the high doping in silicate glass system, which is favorable for the output of single-frequency fiber lasers. In this work, the concentration quenching threshold of mid-infrared luminescence is enhanced by 60% after macro-scale manipulation of glassy structure. The reason can be attributed to the reduced maximum phonon energy after the increasing of Pb content and the increasing number of emitters due to the looser glassy network. The absorption and emission cross sections after structural engineering can reach to 0.75 × 10–20 cm2 and 1.53 × 10–20 cm2, respectively. These results reveal that the concentration quenching threshold can be effectively enhanced through the structural manipulation in a wide range, and the prepared lead silicate glass after structural engineering can be the ideal candidate for drawing optical fiber and are potential in future optical applications.