Irradiation-induced defect formation is a common phenomenon in glasses. The influence of the two polyvalent ions cobalt and nickel was studied in several model glasses, two of those were fluoride-phosphate glasses. These studies were done in order to contribute to the ongoing research on solarisation. Dopants and impurities may influence the intensity of intrinsic defects and may cause the evolution of additional extrinsic defects. Sample plates of high purity glasses, undoped and doped with CoO and Ni0, were irradiated by UV lamps and X-rays. The formed defect centres displayed absorption bands in the UV-VIS range, which were recorded by absorption spectroscopy. As many defect centres are paramagnetic, EPR spectra of the irradiated samples were taken.
