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 (⁴S3/2) and red (⁴F9/2) upconversion luminescence. The dependence on temperature of the intensity ratio of upconversion emission from thermally-coupled ²H11/2 and ⁴S3/2 levels of Er3+ in the 240-300 K temperature range has been used to estimate a relative sensitivity of 1.09 × 10-2 K-1. Thermal measurements performed on the powder samples by using a thermal infrared camera exhibit a very inhomogeneous heat distribution at the sample surface due to the random distribution of the pumping energy inside the sample as well as to the random properties of the thermal field. The analysis of both spectroscopic and thermal measurements show that after a transient heating induced by the background absorption, cooling of discrete regions by means of anti-Stokes processes can be observed.
Keywords: erbium; laser cooling; laser materials; low phonon materials; upconversion.