Multiphonon relaxation in fluoride and ternary sulfide laser crystals with neodymium ions

It is shown that, in ternary sulfide crystal matrices, in contrast to fluoride matrices with similar phonon spectra, the multiphonon relaxation rate as a function of the number p _eff of “effective phonons” (the energy gap ΔE _min between the J′ and J levels of the Nd³⁺ ion) has a steep slope, which does not decrease with increasing p _eff. This indicates that, compared to fluoride crystals, the multiphonon relaxation rate of mid-IR transitions (in the range 4–5 μm) in ternary sulfide matrices sharply decreases, by three to four orders of magnitude.