Physicochemical Properties and Fiber-Drawing Ability of Tellurite Glasses in the TeO2-ZnO-Y2O3 Ternary System

• Published in: Materials Vol. 15; no. 3; p. 1177
• Main Authors: Strutynski, Clément, Evrard, Marianne, Le Gendre, Antoine, Maldonado, Anthony, Désévédavy, Frédéric, Gadret, Grégory, Jules, Jean-Charles, Smektala, Frédéric
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 03.02.2022; MDPI
• Subjects: Attenuation; Crystallization; Fourier transforms; Gas flow; Glass transition temperature; infrared; Lanthanum oxides; Mechanical properties; Optical fibers; oxide glass; Oxygen; Physics; Refractivity; tellurite; Tellurium dioxide; Temperature; Ternary systems; Vitrification; Yttrium; Yttrium oxide; Zinc oxide; France; oxide glass; infrared; tellurite; optical fibers
• ISSN: 1996-1944; 1996-1944
• DOI: 10.3390/ma15031177

Glasses in the TeO2-ZnO-Y2O3 (TZY) ternary system are examined in the present work. The vitrification domain of the chosen oxide matrix is determined and differential scanning calorimetry as well as X-ray diffraction measurements are carried out. The material characterizations reveal that Y2O3 incorporation cannot exceed 5 mol.% without causing detrimental crystallization within the glass. Optical transmission and refractive index investigations are conducted on compositions yielding fully amorphous samples. Next, the fiber drawing ability of selected yttrium-containing zinc-tellurite glasses is assessed and fiber-attenuation measurements in the mid-infrared are presented. Finally, a multimode step-index fiber is fabricated by combining a TZY cladding glass with a La2O3-based tellurite core glass. It is believed that yttrium-containing glasses could prove useful in association with other high glass transition temperature (>300 °C) TeO2-based materials for the design of robust optical fibers with precisely engineered refractive index profiles.