Refractive index improvement of commercial chalcogenide glasses by external doping with Ag and Pb

The refractive index of commercial chalcogenide glasses (ChGs) available in the market is generally 2.4 to 2.7, which is relatively low and has huge room for improvement. In this paper, different ratios of Ag/Pb were doped into commercial glasses by the melt-quenching method to substantially increase their refractive index. The refractive index of the commercial Ge28Sb12Se60 glass was increased from 2.6 to 3.05 by external doping with 20 atomic percentage (at%) of Ag. And the refractive index of commercially available Ge33As12Se55 glass was increased from 2.45 to 2.88 by external doping with 9 at% of Pb. These improvements effectively reduce the thickness of commercial lenses at the same radius of curvature and focal length. The physical and optical properties of commercial glasses doped with Ag/Pb in different proportions were systematically characterized.