Intense near-infrared emission of related with charge transfer in phosphate glass

The ultraviolet to near infrared emission of Y b3+ in phosphate glass has been investigated. It was found that Y b3+ ions had several emission bands at 315, 430, 465, 976 and 1004 nm excited with 265 nm, which indicated that the charge transfer states played an important role in the emission of Y b3+. In addition, incorporating Gd3+ in the Y b3+-doped phosphate glass can greatly increase the intensity of the near-infrared emission of Y b3+ and expand the absorbing region from 250 to 400 nm. The obtained results would be beneficial for studying new materials, which can be used as enhancing the photovoltaic conversion efficiency of silicon solar cells via a down shifting process.