Organic/inorganic hybrid silicate materials for optical applications; highly fluorinated hybrid glasses doped with (Erbium-ions/CdSe nanoparticles) for laser amplifier material

A new family of organic/inorganic hybrid silicate materials, bridged polysilsesquioxanes, was designed and synthesized through a molecular-level mixing technique. Since hybrid materials in the molecular-composite level, whose domain sizes are in the nanometer-scale, and whose constituents often lose individual identities and thus create new properties, we obtained a set of improved properties from those organically modified glasses. By modifying the Si-O-Si polymeric network, in this study, we produced controllable, porous hybrid glasses for facile and uniform doping of various ions, metals or semiconductor particles. By taking advantage of void volume created in those molecularly modified silicate systems, novel optical materials with designed properties can thus be achieved. Via a chemical strategy, we designed hexylene- or fluoroalkylene-bridged hybrid glasses doped with both Er⁺³ ions and CdSe nano-particles for the development of new laser amplifier materials. In photoluminescence experiments, a significant enhancement in fluorescence intensity at 1540 nm has been obtained from the fluoroalkylene-bridged glass. The presence of CdSe nano-particles, by virtue of their low phonon energy, also appears to significantly influence the nature of the surrounding environment of Er⁺³ ions in those modified silicate systems, resulting in the increased fluorescence intensity.