A series of glass samples was prepared by the melt quenching method with the following composition: 60 B2O3- (40-x) PbO - xLiF. The glass samples were then doped with 3 x 10(20) ions/cm(3) of Sm(2)o(3), where x = 10-40 mol%. Both density and molar volume are found to decrease with decreasing PbO content for both undoped and Sm3+ doped samples. The difference observed in their values indicated the effect of doping on the structure of the prepared glasses. FT-IR spectra and other calculated structural parameters were used to investigate the structure of the prepared glasses. The change in refractive index is similar to the density variation as it is found to decrease with decreasing PbO content. UV-vis absorption was used to study the overlap of the absorption band due to the allowed electronic s -> p transition of Pb2+ with the interband transition and also to investigate the f-f transitions of Sm3+ ions. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.