Revisiting the luminescence properties of Er3+, Tm3+and Ho3+doped Bi4Ge3O12 rod-type crystal fibers for the laser application

BGO single crystals doped with Er3+, Tm3+ and Ho3+ rare-earth ions were prepared in the form of rod-type crystal fibers via the micro-pulling down technique to perform an extensive investigation of their visible, near-and mid-infrared luminescence properties and to really decide on their interest as solid-state laser media in the various spectral domains. Revisiting and completing the absorption spectra already available in the literature led to the derivation of more reliable "effective" radiative lifetimes and branching ratios. Registration of the fluorescence decays of the most important emitting levels versus dopant concentrations led for the first time to an unambiguous determination of "intrinsic" emission lifetimes - corresponding to negligible contributions from inter-ionic energy-transfers -and non-radiative multiphonon relaxation rates. Such data also allowed for the determination of the dominant phonon energy which comes into play in the electron-phonon coupling respon-sible for these multiphonon relaxation processes and for its lattice vibration origin, i.e. a high phonon energy of the order of 820 cm-1 corresponding to the coupling between bending vibrations of (GeO4)4-tetrahedra and vibrations corresponding to motions of these (GeO4)4-tetrahedra against the Bi3+ ions for which the rare-earth dopant ions substitute. Using the above data and different methods for the calibration of the registered emission spectra in cross section unit and for the derivation of gain cross section curves finally show that mid-infrared emissions of Er:BGO, Tm:BGO and Ho:BGO around 1.55 mu m, 1.9 mu m and 2 mu m, respectively, occur with com-parable gain cross sections as in the most important reference mid-infrared laser materials, although over slightly shifted thus complementary spectral domains. It is shown that potentialities also exist with Tm:BGO in the blue, deep-red and near-infrared spectral domains around 470 nm, 800 nm and 1.45 mu m, by pumping the crystals with conventional pump sources and using some suitable co-dopants to avoid detrimental self-terminating processes.