Anti-escaping of incident laser in rare-earth doped fluoride ceramics with glass forming layer

Adaptive fluoride ceramic with glass forming layer (GC(ZBL)-Er) used in laser anti-escaping has been prepared by one-step synthesis, and the thickness of glass layer is identified as ~0.41 mm. Blue, green and red emissions of Er(3+)/Yb(3+) codoped fluoride ceramic (C(ZBL)-Er) and glass layer (G(ZBL)-Er) have been investigated under ~980 nm laser pumping. With the forming of thin glass layer on ceramic surface, the absorption intensities on diffuse reflection of GC(ZBL)-Er at 974 nm and 1.53 μm increase by 48% and 53% than those of C(ZBL)-Er. Excited by a 979 nm laser, the presence of the glass layer increases the absolute absorption rate in spectral power from 75% in C(ZBL)-Er to 83% in GC(ZBL)-Er, which is consistent with the improvement in the absorbed photon number. In addition, the quantum yield of GC(ZBL)-Er complex is raised by 28.4% compared to the case of ceramic substrate by photon quantification. Intense absorption-conversion ability and efficient macroscopical anti-escaping effect confirm the superiority of ingenious structure in the fluoride ceramics with glass forming layer, which provides a new approach for developing the absorption-conversion materials of anti-NIR laser detection.