Study of the influence of silver impurity on the linear and nonlinear refractive index of tellurite glasses

Abstract

The tellurite glass system x AgO1/2. (100-x) (0,85 TeO2. 0,12 Nb2O5. 0,03 Na2O) mol%, where x = 0; 0.5; 2.0; 5.0 was investigated by OA, Z-scan and refractive index measurements using a coupled prism system. Refractive index data were used to calculate the linear susceptibility and dielectric constant using Wemple’s method and the optical gap was evaluated from AO. No significant changes were introduced with the addition of silver. However, the Z-scan plots showed an assymetric pattern for samples with added silver, which was analyzed with the aid of the models: Sheik-Bahae [1,2], thermal lenses [3], aberrant thermal lenses [3] and Lara [4], yieldind discrepant results. We attribute this assymetry to a multiphonon emission and a model based on Sumi [5] is proposed.