Design, processing and characterization of custom phosphate glasses for photonic and biomedical applications

Phosphate glasses (PGs) are promising host materials for the development of compact fiber amplifiers and lasers thanks to their good chemical durability, easy processing, outstanding optical properties, no clustering effect and very high solubility of rare-earth (RE) ions. Furthermore, some particular calcium-phosphate glasses exhibit unique dissolution properties in aqueous media with degradation rates that can be tailored by properly designing the glass composition. This feature makes them attractive biomaterials and allows the engineering of novel biomedical devices for deep-tissue diagnosis and therapy. In this work we will report the ongoing activities and the recent results obtained by our research group on the design, processing and characterization of novel custom phosphate glasses for both photonic and biomedical applications.