Silver nanoparticles enhanced luminescence of Eu3+-doped tellurite glass

A series of silver nanoparticles (NPs) embedded zinc-tellurite glass is prepared by the melt-quench method. In order to nucleate and reduce the silver ions (Ag+) to silver NPs (Ag-0) heat treatment with different time intervals above the glass transition temperature is carried out. The transmission electron microscopy (TEM), differential thermal analyses (DTA), UV-vis-NIR absorption spectroscopy and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy are used to study the annealing time dependent optical properties. The glass transition temperature (T-g) from DTA for an as prepared sample is 296 degrees C. TEM image displays the homogeneous distribution of silver NPs with average diameter similar to 8 to 27 nm. From UV-vis-NIR spectra, the observed localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) bands are found to be located within the range 487-501 nm for the samples with AgCl. Furthermore, under an excitation of 395 nm, four bands are observed at 585, 612, 650, 698 nm which corresponds to the D-5(0)-F-7(0:1:2;3;4) transitions of Eu3+ ions. Moreover, luminescence intensity of all the bands is increased due to the presence of silver nanostructures. The hypersensitive transition D-5(0)-F-7(2) of Eu3+ is much more enhanced (similar to 1.9 times) mainly due to the local field effect of silver NPs. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.