Room-temperature hole-burning and sublinear hole-growth dynamics in an Sm2+-doped aluminosilicate glass

Aluminosilicate glasses doped with Sm2+-ion can exhibit hole-burning at room temperature. In this paper, we investigate the hole-growth dynamics of Sm2+-ion-doped aluminosilicate glasses prepared by the sol–gel method to reveal the hole-formation at room temperature. We found that the spectral holes exhibit Lorenz profiles. Hole-growth dynamics can be well fitted by the function H(t)=αtβ. The hole-growth rate Kt decreases with hole-burning time and is proportional to the laser power of the hole-burning light. We assume that an Sm2+ ion and a trap nearby consist of a two-level-system (TLS). For some of the Sm2+ ions, the distance between the Sm2+ ion and the nearest trap is beyond the interaction range of tunneling in the glass network.