Engineering Novel Infrared Glass Ceramics for Advanced Optical Solutions

Advanced photonic devices require novel optical materials that serve specified optical function but also possess attributes which can be tailored to accommodate specific optical design, manufacturing or component/device integration constraints. Multi-component chalcogenide glass (ChG) materials have been developed which exhibit broad spectral transparency with a range of physical properties that can be tuned to vary with composition, material microstructure and form. Specific tradeoffs that highlight the impact of material morphology and optical properties including transmission, loss and refractive index, are presented. This paper reports property evolution in a representative 20 GeSe2-60 As2Se3-20 PbSe glass material including a demonstration of a 1D GRIN profile through the use of controlled crystallization.