The undoped and Mn2+ ions doped calcium zinc borophosphate glasses have been prepared and their structural and luminescence properties were discussed and reported. The XRD pattern confirms the amorphous nature of the prepared glasses. The FT-IR studies revealed that the network structures of the studied glasses were related to the characteristic phosphate bonds and borate bonds especially P–O–P, O–P–O, BO3 and BO4 units. The increasing of B2O3 and decreasing the P2O5 content on the glass structure caused the conversion of BO3 units and BO4 units and vice versa called as
‘‘boron anomaly effect’’. In addition, the structural features of the glass system also change slightly with the doping of Mn2+ ions. However, the peaks of the bands are at the same position but much broader. The visible photoluminescence spectra revealed three excitation bands at 361, 410 and 500 nm corresponding to the 6A1g (S)?(4E1g (G), 4A1g (G) and 4T2g (G)) transitions respectively. Upon excitation at 410 nm, doped glasses exhibit green emission at low concentration, while emit red luminescence at high concentration (indicating octahedral coordination of Mn2+ emission centers)
which is attributed to a transition from excited 4T1g to the ground 6A1g state of Mn2+ ions. The position of the emission band redshifts with increasing Mn2+ concentration showed that exchange interaction between pairs of Mn2+ ions was involved. The decay curves of 6A1g (S) metastable state upon 410 nm excitation revealed a curve for all concentrations. The decrease of lifetimes with an increase in Mn2+ concentration are attributed to concentration quenching among the Mn2+ ions at higher concentrations. The results of the present investigations indicate that in doped glasses, the color of the emission peaks can be tuned by varying the concentration of Mn2+ ions and host materials. The analysis made
through various optical tools strongly suggests that CaZnBP:Mn2+ glasses are promising materials for the development of luminescent optical materials, visible lasers and fluorescent display devices.