Non-Traditional Oxide Glasses via Rapid Quenching

We demonstrate the use of rapid quenching as a method to produce novel oxide glasses not containing traditional glass formers. A splat quench technique was developed to produce glasses in the binary La2O3-Ga2O3 and ternary La2O3-Ga2O3-(Ta or Nb)2O5 materials system in significantly larger sizes than other techniques allow. The glass forming regions of these systems using the splat quench techniques were experimentally determined. The mechanical, thermal, and optical properties of these glasses were measured and the effects of chemistry determined. Glass formability was improved while maintaining mechanical and optical properties through the use of network modifiers. We also demonstrated the doping of active rare earth components into these glass compositions. This report presents research conducted by Optical Sciences code 5620 for the development of novel oxide glasses with greatly improved mechanical and thermal properties for us in the UV to mid-IR spectra.