Effect of aluminum fluoride powder on refractive index and internal defects of fluorophosphate optical glasses

Aluminum fluoride is the main component of fluorophosphate optical glass, and its structure and properties have important effects on the microstructure and chemical stability of optical glass. In this paper, the properties of aluminum fluoride from 3 different manufacturers were studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and the corresponding optical glass was prepared by melting method. The influence of powder morphology on the refractive index and internal defects of fluorophosphate optical glass was studied. The results show that AlF₃ with coarse particle size and porous surface structure can meet the requirements of refractive index and internal defects of fluorophosphates optical glass.