Fabrication and Properties of Mn 2+ Doped‐ZnGa 2 O 4 Glass and Glass‐ceramic Optical Fibers

ABSTRACT Glass‐ceramic materials have proven their significant effectiveness in the domain of optics through fine control of the size and the nature of their crystalline phase(s). However, if developing glass‐ceramic materials as bulk is common, shaping these materials into optical fibers remains a formidable challenge and paves the way to new functionalities as an amplifier, sensor, or laser. The present work reports the first fabrication of Mn 2+ ‐doped glass‐ceramic optical fibers. The studies of the visible luminescence displayed by Mn 2+ ‐doped glass and glass‐ceramic, containing ZnGa 2 O 4 crystals, as bulk and optical fiber under UV excitation, are reported. The optical fibers were drawn using the powder‐in‐tube technique, and crystalline particles of ∼10 nm in size were produced by heat‐treating the parent glass and optical fiber to access glass‐ceramic bulk or glass‐ceramic optical fiber material. An original, manufactured LED‐based setup was successfully used to study the broad luminescence of these fibers. The structure, microstructure, and optical properties of both the glass and glass‐ceramic fibers, along with the LED setup, are discussed in the present article.