Abstract
Heavy metal fluoride glasses exhibit considerable promise as high transparency materials from the UV to the IR. These glasses are prepared by fusion of the mixture of metal fulorides($ZrF_4$, $BaF_2$, $LaF_3$ etc) at 800-1, 00$0^{\circ}C$ under the inert$(N_2)$ or reactive ($CCl_4$, $Cl_2$) atmosphere following the casting into glass on cooling. Infrared absorption at the 3, 400 cm-1 -OH peak has been measured as a function of thickness for several ZrF-$BaF_2$-LaF and $HfF_4$-$BaF_2$-$LaF_3$ glasses to separate contributions from bulk and surface -OH. For glasses melted under $CCl_4$ reactive atmosphere the peak is due almost entirely to surface-OH. and melting in a closed reactor was best for removing -OH. In ambient atmosphere the -OH peak exhibited no time dependence over a 30 d period indicating a very small rate of surface attack by atmospheric H2O. Removal of -OH absorption processing was generally easier and more complete for the $BaF_2$/ThF4-glasses than for the $ZrF_4$-or $HfF_4$-based glasses.