Raman Spectroscopy Of Glasseswith High And Broad Raman Gain In The Boson Peak Region

This thesis investigates Raman spectra of novel glasses and their correlation with structure for Raman gain applications. Raman gain for all-optical amplification by fibers depends significantly on the cross section for spontaneous Raman scattering allowing to compare signal strength and spectral coverage. We also investigate the relationship between glass structure and the Boson peak (enhancement of the low-frequency vibrational density of states) and report new inelastic neutron scattering spectra for niobium-phosphate glasses. Polarization resolved Raman spectra of glasses based on tellurite and phosphate formers have been measured from 6 1500 cm-1 using an excitation wavelength of 514 nm. The Tellurite glasses exhibit Raman Spectra at least 10 times more intense, are more spectrally uniform and possess spectral bandwidths more than a factor of two wider than fused silica. Assignments of the vibrational bands are presented and the compositional dependence of the spectra is discussed with respect to the molecular structure. Significantly high Boson peaks were found in the frequency range from 30-100 cm-1. The Raman gain curves were calculated from the polarized spontaneous Raman spectra. In particular, they show broad and flat band in the low frequency region (50-400 cm-1) suggesting that these glasses may be useful for Raman gain applications extending to very low frequencies. The inelastic neutron scattering spectra of the niobium-phosphate glasses display a pronounced low-frequency enhancement of the vibrational density of states. By averaging over the full accessible wavevector range we obtain an approximate spectral distribution of the vibrational modes. Through direct comparison with the Raman spectra we determine the Raman coupling function which shows a linear behavior near the Boson peak maximum. Possible mechanisms contributing to the low frequency Raman band such as disorder-induced irregular vibrational states are discussed