Polarized absorption and emission spectra have been recorded in a broad spectral range to determine the best pumping and laser emission conditions of the crystals in the infrared domain and to show their potentialities in the blue/green and red regions. These data are completed by lifetime measurements made as a function of the dopant concentration and a discussion of the radiative versus the nonradiative relaxations between the various excited states is developed on the basis of the Judd-Ofelt formalism. Ponctual excited state excitation/absorption measurements are also performed to derive cross section values in a spectral region which has been found interesting in this material for photon-avalanche up-conversion.