Optical properties and irradiation resistance of novel high-entropy oxide glasses La2O3–TiO2–Nb2O5–WO3–M2O3 (M=B/Ga/In)

A new class of high-entropy oxide glasses 20LaO3/2–20TiO2–20NbO5/2–20WO3–20MO3/2 (M = B/Ga/In) were designed and successfully fabricated by aerodynamic containerless processing. The results show that one can control the properties and increase the functionality of glass by changing the type of M. The Vicker's hardness reaches the highest value of 6.45 GPa for glass M = B. The best thermal stability and the glass forming ability, measured using the glass-transition temperature Tg and the temperature gap ΔT respectively, are found in glass M = In, with Tg = 740 °C and ΔT = 72 °C. The optical properties show that the as-prepared glasses exhibit good transparency and high refractive index. Especially for glass M = In, its transmittance reaches almost 78% from visible to IR region, and the value is nearly unchanged after electron beam irradiation, indicating good irradiation resistance of this high-entropy oxide glass. Furthermore, the glass M = In has the highest refractive index (nd = 2.46) and low wavelength dispersion (νd = 45.6). These results demonstrate that the conceptual design of high-entropy materials is adaptable to high performance oxide glasses, which should be promising host materials for optical applications such as smart phones with digital cameras and endoscopes.