Abstract
Cadmium lead-borate reinforced with Nd
3+
ions glass systems in the composition (60 −
x
) B
2
O
3
+20CdO+20PbO+
x
Nd
2
O
3
, where
x
= (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 wt%) were prepared using the melt and quench method. The fabricated glasses were coded as BCPNd
x
. The direct effect of Nd
3+
ions on fabrication, physical, structure, and optical characteristics of the fabricated glasses has been investigated. XRD patterns confirmed that all fabricated glasses were in amorphous state. Density was increased from 5.034 g/cm
3
for BCPNd0 (with free Nd
3+
ions) to 5.282 g/cm
3
for BCPNd5 (with 5 wt% of Nd
2
O
3
). Both indirect and direct optical band gaps (
E
g
) were found to increase from (1.52 to 2.57 eV) and (1.95 to 3.19 eV), respectively, with the increase in the content of Nd
2
O
3
. Urbach energy (
E
U
) values of the synthesized glass samples decreased by the increase in Nd
2
O
3
content and changed inversely with (
E
g
) of the samples. Values of the oscillator energy (
E
o
) of the fabricated glasses varied from 2.58 to 6.34 eV, while the dispersion energy (
E
d
) varied from 3.34 to 8.41 eV. Real part of dielectric values decreases with the increase in the wavelength up to 350 nm, and then stays almost constant, with minor differences between different samples. Both bulk energy loss and surface energy loss increase with the increase in Nd
3+
content corresponding to an increase of the bulk and surface energy loss. The amorphous nature of the glasses can be identified from the broad peaks of FTIR absorbance spectra.