Recent Advances in Hybrid Optical Materials: Integrating Nanoparticles within a Glass Matrix

Abstract

Glass containing optically active nanoparticles have been manufactured for centuries. However, only in the early 1900s, the invention of ultramicroscope and development of Mie theory paved the way to discovering the occurrence of nanoparticles in glass and their special role in imparting unique optical properties to glass. This groundbreaking insight inspired scientists to extensively research such nanoparticles‐in‐glass hybrid optical materials, which led to a series of fundamental breakthroughs (e.g., invention of glass ceramics, discovery of quantum dots) and commercial successes (e.g., photosensitive glass, photochromic glass, dichromic polarizer). Over the past decades, a new wave of research in this area has been initiated by opportunities of incorporating a large variety of synthetic nanoparticles in glass, which promises the development of advanced functional devices for lighting, display, smart window, data storage, and sensing applications. Recent development of various approaches of fabricating nanoparticles‐in‐glass hybrid optical materials and postmodifying nanoparticles that are embedded in glass is reviewed. The state‐of‐the‐art techniques relevant to controlling the dispersion, distribution, orientation, and nanostructure of nanoparticles in glass, as well as manipulating the macroscopic performance of the hybrid materials are discussed. Examples of applications with promising pathway to commercially viable devices based on hybrid optical materials are outlined.

Highly transparent cerium doped glasses with full‐band UV‐shielding capacity

“…Homogeneous polystyrene‐embedded CeO 2 nanoparticles showed excellent full‐band UV‐blocking ability, but they would decomposed over 400℃ . Recently, glass containing optically active nanoparticles have been manufactured and widely applied . For instance, in‐situ growing ZnO quantum dots glasses were reported.…”

“…15 Recently, glass containing optically active nanoparticles have been manufactured and widely applied. [16][17][18][19] For instance, in-situ growing ZnO quantum dots glasses were reported. Not only their high transparency and full-band UV-shielding capacity, but also their remarkable stability was investigated in detail.…”

Mechanistic insight into the non-hydrolytic sol–gel process of tellurite glass films to attain a high transmission

“…Over the past decades, advanced hybrid optoelectronic lms have been widely studied and developed for a broad range of applications that rely on integrating various functional nanoparticles into an amorphous matrix. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] Since the majority of optoelectronic nanoparticles have high refractive indices, e.g., ITO nanoparticles (index ¼ 1. 54 Besides attaining the transparency of the lm itself, the reduced index contrast between the incorporated nanoparticles and the lms can signicantly suppress the scattering, which in turn retains the transparency of the hybrid lms but also enhances the efficiency for light delivery and optical signal collection.…”

Tunable Mode Converter Device Based on Photonic Crystal Fiber with a Thermo-Responsive Liquid Crystal Core

“…Nevertheless, many experts around the world predict that the next decade or so, an increasing number of fibers in real networks will reach their capacity limits [3,4]. In order to increase the transmission rates and satisfy the growing demand for information, it is required that we develop several technological breakthroughs, such as low-loss single mode fibers (SMF) [5,6], erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) [7,8], wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) [2,9], polarization division multiplexing (PDM) [10] and high-spectral-efficiency coding through a digital signal processor (DSP) to enable coherent transmission [11]. WDM is the dominant technology that consists of transmitting signals using each wavelength as an independent channel.…”

“…On the other hand, in the last decade, many researchers have explored the possibility of obtaining tunable photonic devices using hybrid PCFs, which offer new alternatives and flexibility to the optic communications systems [6,24,25] and sensing devices [26,27]. To develop this new generation of photonic devices based on hybrid PCFs, many alternatives have been explored, including PCFs filled with thermo-responsive materials such as metals, oils, polymers, semiconductors and liquid crystals (LCs), since their characteristics allow tuning the conditions of light propagation in these fibers [24,[28][29][30][31].…”