Photosensitive Characteristics of Dopant-Free, Ultraviolet-Sensitive Calcium Aluminate Glasses

Calcium aluminate glasses show high sensitivity to ultraviolet radiation without the doping of optically active components. In this paper, photosensitive characteristics and the cause of UV-induced coloring were investigated for these glasses. Ultraviolet rays below 270 nm were effective for inducing the coloring. The most effective wavelength agreed with that of the apparent absorption edge. In the ternary system with SiO₂ or GeO₂, the sensitivity was monotonically reduced with the amount of the third component and almost vanished for the compositions containing 40 mol%. On the basis of the establishment of a close correlation between two optical absorption bands and two electron spin resonance signals induced by UV illumination, the UV-induced coloring was concluded to be due to the emergence of an aluminum-oxygen hole center (Al-OHC) and an ozonide (O₃^-).