J. Solid St. Sci. and Technol. Letters, Vol 14, No 1 (2007) 68-72 ISSN 0128-8393 THE EFFECT OF MODIFIER ON THE Er 3+ -DOPED PHOSPHATE GLASS A. Ab Rasid, M.R. Sahar, M.S. Rohani, N. Mohd. Nasir & A. Kasim Optical Crystal Research Group, Physics Department, Faculty of Science, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Skudai, Johor Darul Takzim, Malaysia ABSTRACT Er 3+ doped phosphate glasses of the P 2 O 5 –Na 2 O–CaO–Er 2 O 3 system have been prepared by melt-quenching technique. The density of the samples was determined using a simple Archimedes method and the hardness was measured using a micro Vickers tester. It is found that both density and the hardness increase with the increasing of rare-earth content. The IR transmission has been investigated using the Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR). It is found that the absorption spectra of the system shows a significant changes in both intensity and peak position as a function of compositions. The photoluminescence spectra give six dominant peaks, in the wavelength range of 200nm–1000nm, with the excitation wavelength of 336.8nm (3.69eV). INTRODUCTION Phosphate glass has been found to be an excellent host for Er 3+ ions in term of their spectroscopic properties [1]. Erbium doped phosphate glasses also exhibit unusual behavior in the evolution of their physical properties as a function of glass composition (e.g. density, hardness). However, not many studies have been done on the dependence of these properties to the modifiers content in the glass. Thus, it is the objective of this paper to discuss the effect of modifiers to the physical and spectroscopic properties of the erbium doped phosphate glasses. EXPERIMENT DETAILS The sample was prepared using melt-quenching technique where the batch is being heated in a silica crucible in the electric furnace at 800-1150 o C for about 2 hours. Powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) technique was used to confirm the amorphous state of the samples. The density of the glass samples is measured by a simple Archimedes method using toluene as an immersion liquid with Precisa Balance XT220 while a Vickers hardness were obtained using a Shimadzu Micro Hardness Tester HMV-2 with a load of 1.961N. The IR spectra of the samples were recorded using a Perkin Elmer GX Transform Infrared Spectrometer at 400cm -1 to 4000cm -1 . The background for the IR spectra of the glass samples was corrected for the KBr spectra. To study the emission spectra of all glass samples, a Perkin Elmer Instruments LS55 Luminescence Spectrometer has been used. The sample scanning was done with radiation wave number spectral in the range of 200cm -1 - 900cm -1 . Corresponding Author: ikacute@myjaring.net 68