Spectroscopy and thermal properties of Ga2S3 based glasses

In the present work we describe the synthesis and spectroscopy and thermal properties of the vitreous system 20La(2)S(3)-(80 - x)Ga2S3-xCsCl, x varying from 10 to 30, producing homogeneous glasses by fusion method in vitreous carbon crucible in a horizontal silica chamber with a controlled atmosphere of sulphur, present during whole process. The sample properties, after synthesis, were measured by X-ray diffratometry, absorption spectroscopy, Raman scattering, density, hardness and refractive index. Our results show that the density, refractive index and hardness increase with CsCl content, while the phonon frequencies are less than 470 cm(-1). We have drawn optical fibers from samples in this glass system because of an increase of thermal stability with increasing CsCl content. The refractive index measurements allowed us to estimate the third-order non-linear optical susceptibilities and show that it depends on the CsCl content. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.