Influence of Upconversion Processes in the Optically-Induced Inhomogeneous Thermal Behavior of Erbium-Doped Lanthanum Oxysulfide Powders.

The efficient infrared-to-visible upconversion emission present in Er-doped lanthanum oxysulfide crystal powders is used as a fine thermal sensor to determine the influence of upconversion processes on the laser-induced thermal load produced by the pump laser and to assess the potentialities of this material in order to obtain anti-Stokes laser-induced cooling. The analysis of the upconversion emission and excitation spectra as well as the decay curves indicates that energy transfer upconversion is the main mechanism responsible for the green (⁴S) and red (⁴F) upconversion luminescence. The dependence on temperature of the intensity ratio of upconversion emission from thermally-coupled ²H and ⁴S levels of Er in the 240-300 K temperature range has been used to estimate a relative sensitivity of 1.