Magneto-optical and luminescent properties of Tb3+ ions doped GBPZ magneto-optical glass

Paramagnetic GeO2-B2O3-P2O5-ZnO (GBPZ) magneto-optical glass doped with different concentration of Tb3+ ions (20–45 mol%) was successfully prepared by high-temperature melting quenching technology. The effects of different concentrations of Tb3+ ions on the structure, magneto-optical properties and luminescence properties of GBPZ glass system were studied. Through theoretical calculation, the effective doping concentration, molar volume, oxygen packing density and theoretical optical alkalinity of Tb3+ ions in the glass were obtained and analyzed the effect of these parameters on the Verdet constant. It is worth noting that the GBPZ glass samples exhibit excellent magneto-optical properties, especially the Verdet constant value of the glass sample with Tb3+ ions doping concentration of 45 mol% reaches -168.55 rad/(T·m) at the incident light wavelength of 633 nm, which is significantly higher than the Verdet constant (-134 rad/(T·m)) of the commercially available terbium gallium garnet crystal, and the strong green emission located at 544 nm observed from the sample will contribute to GBPZ magneto-optical glass in optical field of application.