Laser heating of tellurite (TeO2)-based glass up to similar to 550 K by femtosecond (fs) pulses of 800 nm from a regenerative Ti:sapphire laser was optically in situ monitored using green up-conversion fluorescence of Er3+ ions doped in TeO2-based glasses, where a fluorescence intensity ratio of two green up-conversion fluorescence at 526 nm (H-2(11/2)-I-4(15/2)) and 548 nm (S-4(3/2)-I-4(15/2)) was varied by thermal activation between H-2(11/2) and S-4(3/2) levels. By comparison with results on an aluminosilicate glass doped with Er3+ it was clearly found that the fs laser heating was caused by nonlinear absorption of the host material of TeO2-based glass via the imaginary part of the third-order nonlinear susceptibility (chi((3))). (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.