title: Use of thulium-sensitized rare earth-doped low phonon energy crystalline hosts for IR sources.
abstract: Crystalline hosts with low phonon energies enable novel energy transfer processes when doped with rare earth ions. Two applications of energy transfer for rare earth ions in thulium-sensitized low phonon energy crystals that result in infrared luminescence are discussed. One application is an endothermic, phonon-assisted cross-relaxation process in thulium-doped yttrium chloride that converts lattice phonons to infrared emission, which raises the possibility of a fundamentally new method for achieving solid-state optical cooling. The other application is an optically pumped mid-IR phosphor using thulium-praseodymium-doped potassium lead chloride that converts 805-nm diode light to broadband emission from 4,000 to 5,500 nm. These two applications in chloride crystals are discussed in terms of critical radii calculated from Forster-Dexter energy transfer theory. It is found that the critical radii for electric dipole-dipole interactions in low phonon energy chloride crystals are comparable to those in conventional oxide and fluoride crystals. It is the reduction in multi-phonon relaxation rates in chloride crystals that enable these additional energy transfer processes and infrared luminescence.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Loyola University Maryland, 4501 N, Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21210, USA. Ganem@loyola.edu.
authors.forename: Joseph
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ganem
authors.forename: Steven R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Bowman