Germanate Glasses as Absorbers for Infrared Laser

Zinc-potassium germanate glasses with nominal composition 50 % GeO2+25 % ZnO+25 % K2CO3 (GZK) and obtained through melt-quenching technique, exhibits superior properties to silicate glasses, widely used as laser light absorbers. These GZK glasses are obtained at lower melting temperatures, around 1100 C, where GeO2 and K2O are used as glass formers, while ZnO is used as a disperser. Their transparency in the uv-visible range, higher absorption coefficient in the far-infrared region, and thermal properties like thermal conductivity, specific heat, and thermal diffusivity make them useful for absorbers in the calorimetric techniques for far-infrared CW lasers. The melt quenching procedure preserves the nominal composition of the glass samples compared with the initial mixture of oxides. The presence of the same ZnO concentration between the initial mixture and final glass confirms the role of ZnO as disperser, which does not contribute to the glass forming procedure