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Anti-Stokes shift, provided by embedded rare earth (RE) ions in fluoride crystal host, is used to obtain a net cooling of a solid system. Yb3+ is currently the RE ion that presents the best cooling performance when inserted into a suitable host, like yttrium lithium fluoride (YLF). Recently, a new approach to laser cooling has been proposed, in which an enhancement of the cooling efficiency is reached by co-doping with Yb3+ and Tm3+. In this work, we compare, in terms of cooling efficiency, two samples 5%Yb:YLF and 5%Yb-0.0080%Tm:YLF, grown with the same starting material in order to avoid the difference in chemical composition of impurity. Some contaminants, like iron, are very detrimental for cooling efficiency and they make it difficult to compare grown crystals with different raw powders. We demonstrate that the presence of a small concentration of Tm3+ ions permits it to decrease the background absorption and to increase the cooling efficiency.

Optical cooling of solids, relying on annihilation of lattice phonons via anti-Stokes fluorescence, is an emerging technology that is rapidly advancing. The development of high-quality Yb-doped fluoride single crystals definitely led to cryogenic and sub-100-K operations, and the potential for further improvements has not been exhausted by far. Among fluorides, so far the best results have been achieved with Yb-doped LiYF 4 (YLF) single crystals, with a record cooling to 91 K of a stand-alone YLF:10%Yb. We report on preliminary investigation of optical cooling of an LiLuF 4 (LLF) single crystal, an isomorph of YLF where yttrium is replaced by lutetium. Different samples of 5% Yb-doped LLF single crystals have been grown and optically characterized. Optical cooling was observed by exciting the Yb transition in single-pass at 1025 nm and the cooling efficiency curve has been measured detecting the heating/cooling temperature change as a function of pumping laser frequency.

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