Manifestation of europium ions in photoinduced absorption of lanthanum-gallium-sulfide-oxide glasses

Illumination of Eu-doped lanthanum-gailium-sulfide-oxide glasses by doubled-frequency coherent laser pulses of Nd-YAG lasers at power densities 20-120 MW/cm(2) has shown an occurrence of photoinduced changes of fundamental absorption edge. Moreover, the total absorption was changed up to 25% in the transparent spectral range. Different rare-earth impurities cause different spectral shifts of absorption edge. Among them europium ions demonstrated the highest photoinduced changes. This may be caused by a relatively large polarizabiity of these ions compared to other rare earth ions. This opens a rare possibility to use the investigated sulfide glasses for recording of dynamic holograms. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.