Structural characterization of rare earth containing glasses by molecular dynamics simulation

Rare-earth (RE) containing glasses are largely used in technological application such as optical fiber amplifiers, upconversion laser and glass laser. It is well know that the local environment of the RE ions strongly influence the optical properties shown by the glass materials. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulation can be successfully used to characterize the local structure around the RE ions also in glass systems with very low content of rare earth ions. In this work are considered several materials containing respectively Nd2O3 and Er2O3 and the data obtained by MD are used to analyse the different environment of Nd3+ and Er3+ in the glass matrix and to explain the tendency shown by these ions to clusterize leading to an inhomogeneous glass structure.