Peculiarities of emission spectra of Er-exchanged LiNbO/sub 3/ caused by specific phonon-assisted decay of Er/sup 3+/-ion excited states

In light of the well-established limitations of Er indiffusion technique, Er exchange technique, inducing unusual chemical bonding rearrangement and evident crystal structure modification, appears to open new possibilities for selective manipulation of phonon-assisted processes in Er:LiNbO
₃
and, hence, for suppression of upconversion. Our experimental study evidenced a significant and very interesting difference between the fluorescence spectra of Er:LiNbO
₃
crystal fabricated by Er exchange and those fabricated by Er indiffusion