Synthesis and Structural Characterization of Niobium Doped Lead-Telluride Glass-Ceramics

The basic glasses with composition (70-x) TeO2-30PbO-xNb2O5 (where x=0.1 mol % and 0.2 mol %) were prepared by melt quenching method and heat treated at 2800C for 30 min. The samples becoming glass ceramics was confirmed by SEM. The XRD parameters such as crystallite size of these glass ceramics decreases as increase the impurity and is the order of 184-109A0 . However, micro strain (ε) and dislocation density (δ) increases. Glass transition and thermal stability estimated from DSC measurements and it has been found that both increase with increasing of impurity. Infrared Absorption spectra were measured for TeO2 glass and glass ceramic doped with Nb2O5. The recorded bands attributed to the different modes of vibration and stretching of Te-O band. Optical Absorption spectra of TeO2-PbONb2O5 system shows that the absorption edge has a tail extending towards the lower energies and shifts towards for higher energies for rare earths-doped glass-ceramics. The degree of the edge shift was found to depend on the structural rearrangement and the relative concentrations of the glass basic units. The general appearance of the absorption spectra of these rare earth doped TeO2 glasses are similar to the spectra observed for other glasses doped with the same kind of rare earth oxides