Clarifying Glass Luminescence at Near-Infrared Excitation

Glass is a unique material that is often encountered in chemical and biological studies as a convenient sample holder (vial or microscope slide in particular). If the sample is probed with light in fluorescence and Raman spectroscopic experiments, the contribution from glass is often present and can obscure the spectra from the analyte of interest. It is important to understand the nature of glass photoemission properties to control this potential interference. The Raman spectrum of glass is dominated by peaks around 500 and 1000 cm^–1 at the excitation with UV and visible light. A strong broad emission band centered at 880 nm appears when glass is irradiated with near-infrared light, a popular 785 nm laser light in particular. We proved experimentally in this study that this broad band is due to glass photoluminescence and not Raman scattering. In addition, three narrow components were found to contribute to this band, which have different excitation profiles indicating that they originate from three different species or the same species experiencing three different types of local environments. It has been hypothesized that these peaks could be due to the presence of rare earth impurities in the glass. Further study is necessary to identify these luminescent centers.