Abstract

Interest in trivalent dysprosium activated optical materials derives primarily from two promising applications. One is a possible alternative to praseodymium doped optical amplifiers for the second telecommunication window [1], while the other are solid-state lasers operating in the visible part of spectrum [2], The later is specifically related to the blue and yellow emissions originating from ⁴F_9/2 level of Dy³⁺. While the lasing in blue spectral range is relatively easily obtainable in solid state materials using either harmonic generation or up-conversion processes, yellow laser action seems to be rather unique. Moreover, in the case of dysprosium, emission from ⁴F_9/2 are considerably privileged against non-radiative relaxation by a large, circa 8000 cm"¹ energy gap to the next lower laying energy level, which is ⁶F_3v2. This specific property enables considering rather high phonon energy, yttrium aluminium garnet (YAG) crystals as potential host material for dysprosium ions. Notably, very few papers related to Dy:YAG luminescent properties in the visible - blue and yellow range evidently did not exhaust the subject.

© 2007 IEEE