Characterization of Mg-based nanoparticles in rare-earth-doped silicate optical fiber preforms: A modeling by Molecular Dynamics simulations

Description

New rare-earth ion-doped optical fibres stand for potential applications in telecommunications, sensors, fibre lasers. Although silica-based optical fibres present attractive physical and economical properties as glass host, spectroscopic limitations appears when rare-earth ions are inserted in silica, such as clustering or inappropriate local environment. It has been shown that improvement of Er 3+ spectroscopy occurs when rare-earth ions are embedded in Mg-silicate nanoparticles. [1] These latter are formed in situ in the MgO– SiO2 binary system during melt/quench sequences through phase separation mechanism. [2] Bidault et al. succeeded in simulating by Molecular Dynamics phase separation in MgO–SiO2 binary system through a new simple transferable adaptive model. [3] It allows us to reproduce the formation of rare-earth-doped oxide nanoparticles and we present here an investigation of their structures and compositions as well as the local environment of the rare-earth ions Eu 3+ and Er 3+. In the aim of monitoring luminescence properties inside silica-based optical fibers containing rare-earth-doped nanoparticles, we show that Molecular Dynamics appears to be a powerful tool to understand the relationship between controlled local environments and their spectroscopic features.

Abstract

International audience

Additional details