Crystals and crystal growth

-an introductory survey-

The regular surface geometry and the shiny and often colorful appearance have made
crystals from the mineral kingdom fascinating objects for everybody. Natural crystals
have often been formed at relatively low temperatures by crystallization from solutions,
sometimes in the course of hundreds and thousands of years. Some natural crystals:

Crystals Polished Fluorite Angels Chrysanthemum

Stone

Crystal Singing Bowls Celestite Clusters Polished flat stones Jewellery

Black Green Golden Pink

Tourmaline Tourmaline Topaz Tourmaline
Clear Quartz Crystal Points Top Grade Uruguayan Amethyst Clusters

Snowflake photography
Nowadays, crystals are produced artificially to satisfy the needs of science, technology
and jewelry. The ability to grow high quality crystals has become an essential criteria for
the competitiveness of nations.

Crystals are solids in which the elementary building blocks, the atoms, are arranged
regularly in a space lattice with specific geometrical symmetry elements. There is no
ideal atomic lattice in nature, and it would be not very useful either. Certain
imperfections of the chemical and structural atomic arrangement are essential for the
usefulness and value of crystals.

The artificial crystal kingdom can be divided into three sectors:

-Technical crystals belong to one of the two big sectors of the single crystal market. They
are widely present, often in hidden form. We eat crystals (salt, sugar), we use crystals as
clocks in watches and computers (quartz), for information processing and storage
(silicon), for switching TV-sets (gallium arsenide), for telecommunication (gallium
arsenide) and for transport (turbine blades from nickel-aluminum compounds). Huge salt
crystals (CaF2) are used as UV-light lenses in the submicron structuring during electronic
device fabrication.

- Jewellery forms the second big sector of the single crystal market.

- The market of research crystals is relatively small but extremely diversified. Artificial
research crystals of high quality are the basis of solid state research activities. Natural
crystals are normally not sufficiently qualified for research purposes. Crystals are also
required for modern light and particle scattering and diffraction instruments as
monochromators and detectors. A broad range of geometrically well prepared crystals is
required for thin film, catalysis and electrochemical studies.

Some artificial crystals:

Laser Crystals

Nd:YAG
Nd:YAG for use in industrial, medical, military and
scientific applications. YAG is grown utilizing the
Czochralski technique. The as-grown crystals are
then processed into laser rods or slabs, coated in
house and inspected per customer specifications.

Er:YAG
Er:YAG is a crystal with a wide pump band of 600 -
800 nm. It has numerous applications in a wide range
of medical and dental applications.

Cr, Tm, Ho:YAG

Cr, Tm, Ho:YAG is a crystal material which lasers at
210nmm. This highly efficient crystal can be either
flash-lamp or diode pumped and has applications in
medical, military, and meteorological fields.

Nd:YLF
Nd:YLF as a standard product and produces YLF
doped with other rare earths as required. YLF offers
an alternative to the more common YAG host for
near IR operation.

Nd:YV04
Yttrium Vanadate (or orthovanadate) doped with
Neodymium, Nd:YVO 4 , is a promising material for
diode pumped lasers. Several advantages over
Nd:YAG include a higher gain cross-section, lower
threshold, a wider Nd absorption peak and polarized
output.
Alexandrite - ALLEXITETM
Alexandrite is the leader of a class of tunable solid-
state laser materials. Enhanced by several years of
research and development, it features a broad
wavelength tuning range of 710 - 800 nm with the
capability to store and efficiently extract multijoule
pulses of energy.
 Er, Cr:YSGG
YSGG (Yittrium Scandium Gallium Garnet) doped
with Chromium and Erbium provides an efficient
laser crystal for generating 2.8 micron light in an
important water absorption band.

Nd:GGG
Nd:GGG (1061nm) (Gadolinium Gallium Garnet
doped with Neodymium) for Military Laser Systems

Specialty Crystals

KTP (KTiOPO4 - Potassium Titanyl Phosphate)

KTP can be used in applications such as Harmonic
Generation for Frequency Doubling,Optical
Parametric Oscillator, Electro-optic Pockels Cells
and Quasi Phase Matching.

Cr4+:YAG (Yttrium Aluminum Garnet doped with Chromium)

Passive Q-switches or saturable absorbers provide
high power laser pulses without electro-optic Q-
switches, thereby reducing the package size and
eliminating a high voltage power supply. Cr4+:YAG
is more robust than dyes or color centers and is the
material of choice for 1 micron Nd lasers.

TGG (Terbium Gallium Garnet)

Terbium Gallium Garnet (TGG) is a crystal material
for optical isolator devices. Optical isolator devices
make use of the non-reciprocal Faraday effect in
TGG. The Faraday effect is the rotation of the plane
of polarization of a light beam as it is transmitted
through a TGG crystal in the presence of an external
magnetic field coaxial with the light.

Undoped YAG (Yttrium Aluminum Garnet)

 Undoped YAG is a substrate material that can be
used for both UV and IR optics. It is particularly
useful for applications in the 2 - 3 µm region where
glasses tend to be highly absorbent due to the strong
H2O band.
Co:Spinel - Cobalt Spinel - Passive Q Switch
Passive Q-switches or saturable absorbers generate
high power laser pulses without the use of electro-
optic Q-switches, thereby reducing the package size
and eliminating a high voltage power supply.
Co2+:Spinel (MgAI2O4) is the material of choice
for the important eye-safe wavelengths near 1.5
microns. It has useful absorption that covers 1.2 to
1.6 micron laser transitions. Spinel is a hard, stable
crystal that polishes well.
Neodymium: Gadolinium Vanadate (Nd:GdVO4)
Gadolinium vanadate doped with neodymium,
Nd:GdVO4, is a promising material for diode
pumped lasers. Like neodymium doped yttrium
vanadate, the gadolinium vanadate exhibits a larger
absorption and emission cross section compared to
Nd:YAG
Optical Assemblies

The quality and performance of our optical components are unparalleled in the
industry.

Faraday Rotators & Optical Isolators

Laser users and designers are becoming increasingly
aware of the detrimental effects of back reflections
in their complex optical systems. Stray beams,
instability and even component damage can result
from these undesirable reflections. To combat
unwanted back reflections, an optical isolator can be
used.
Air-Spaced Polarizers
 Originally designed to conform to stringent military
specifications, SYNOPTICS’ Air Spaced Polarizer is
now being offered for commercial applications. The
Air Spaced Polarizer is an alternative to calcite and
Brewster-type polarizers.

Crystal growth techniques

Classifications of growth techniques based on formal expressions of the driving force for
crystallization and on methods used to attain meta-stability of the mother phase.

− Growth of crystals from the melt: Czochralski (CZ), Kyropolous, Bridgman,

Verneuil, Edge-defined film-fed growth (EFG), Stepanov (ST), Floating zone
(FZ) methods.

− Growth of crystal from solution: hydrothermal method, crystal growth in gels,

electro-crystallization.

− Growth in vapor phase: chemical vapor deposition (CVD), metallo-organic vapor

phase epitaxy (MOVPE), etc.