In recent years

Er

3+

-doped glasses with a broad 1.5 m emission band have been extensively investigated for obtaining erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFA) with a wide and flat gain spectrum in the telecommunication window

to be used in dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) optical network systems. In this paper

Er

3+

-doped B

2

O

3

-SiO

2

-GD

2

O

3

-Na

2

O (BSGN) glasses were prepared by the technique of high-temperature melting at different temperature. The 1.5 m emission spectra responsible to

4

I

13/2

4

I

15/2

transition of Er

3+

at 17 Kand room temperature

absorption spectra

time resolved spectra and lifetime of the

4

I

13/2

state are measured and investigated

respectively. Both the bandwidth of the 1.5 m emission and the J-O parameter

6

of Er

3+

in the BSGN glasses increase with the increasing of B

2

O

3

content

and their lifetime decreased. Abroad 1.5 m emission band with bandwidth of more than 80 nm is obtained. The glass ceramics were obtained by the heat treatment for the previous glasses at different temperature above its glass transition temperature (T

g

)

they show different emission spectral shapes from the corresponding glasses. The measured time decay pattern of the 1.5 m emission in the glass ceramic consists of a fast and a slow component

which are attributed to the glass phase and the crystalline phase

respectively

indicating higher 1.5 m emission efficiency in crystalline phase than that in glass phase. Differential thermal analysis result (DTA) also demonstrates high thermal stability of the BSGN glasses. Crystallization by heat treatment is helpful to increasing emission efficiency of the 1.5 m emission band. The Er

3+

-doped BSGN glasses are the promising materials for the EDFA in the 1.5 m window of optical telecommunication system.