Comparative investigation of up-conversion luminescence in Tm3+/Yb3+-codoped germanate–niobic and germanium–bismuth glasses: effect of phonon density on up-conversion emission

Tm3+/Yb3+-codoped germanate–niobic (GN) and germanium–bismuth (GB) glasses have been synthesized by conventional melting and quenching method. Intense blue and weak red emissions centered at 477 and 650 nm, corresponding to the transitions 1G4→3H6 and 1G4→3H4, respectively, were observed at room temperature. The possible up-conversion mechanisms are discussed and estimated. GN glass showed a weaker up-conversion emission than GB glass, which is inconsistent with the prediction from the difference of maximum phonon energy between GN and GB glasses. In this paper, Raman spectroscopy was employed to investigate the origin of the difference in up-conversion luminescence in the two glasses. Compared with phonon side-band spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy extracts more information including both phonon energy and phonon density. For the first time, our results reveal that, besides the maximum phonon energy, the phonon density of host glasses is also an important factor in determining the up-conversion efficiency.