Investigation of the effect of fluoride ions introduction on structural, OH− content and up-conversion luminescence properties in Er3+-doped heavy metal oxide glasses

Effect of fluoride ions introduction on structural, OH− content and up-conversion luminescence properties in Er3+-doped heavy metal oxide glasses have been investigated. Structure was investigated, indicating that fluoride has an important influence on the phonon density, maximum phonon energy of host glasses. With increasing fluoride content, the up-conversion luminescence intensity and quantum efficiencies increase notably, which could not be explained only by the maximum phonon energy change of host glasses. Our results show that, with the introduction of PbF2, the decrease of phonon density and OH− content contributes more to the enhanced up-conversion emissions than that of maximum phonon energy.