Contract Crystal Growth and Fabrication Services

This program is intended to give the scientists at the Naval Research Laboratory the ability to evaluate new solid state laser crystals. The crystal requested and grown was Cr,TmYALO. The melt composition is listed in Table 1. It was assumed that the distribution coefficients are unity and that the crystal composition will be the same as the melt. The crystal was grown with a b-axis YALO seed. At about the time full diameter was reached the crystal developed twins apparently from several pieces of iridium that attached to the surface at that point. The oxygen level can be adjusted on future runs to decrease the occurrence of iridium metal. As a result of the twinning some of the crystal was badly cracked, but a 63.5mm laser rod was extracted.