10.7 Crystal Growth.pdfVIP

10 Crystal Growth, Size, and Morphology Control of Nd:RVO4 Under Hydrothermal Conditions 1 1 2 3 K. Byrappa , B. Nirmala , K.M. Lokanatha Rai , and M. Yoshimura 1Department of Geology, University of Mysore, Manasagangotri, Mysore-570 006, India 2Department of Chemistry, University of Mysore, Manasagangotri, Mysore-570 006, India 3Materials Structures Laboratory, Center for Materials Design, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 4259, Nagatsuta, Midori, Yokohama 226, Japan 10.1 Introduction Growth of solid-state laser host crystals is an attractive field in solid-state science owing to its technological significance. Laser diode pumped solid-state lasers have a wide variety of applications in military, industrial, medical treatment, and scien- tific fields due to their advantages of high stability, compactness, high efficiency, and long life time and have become one of the frontier areas of research [1]. There exists a large number of solid-state laser host crystals. In this context, the rare earth vanadates are of great interest due to their useful luminescent and magnetic properties [2]. These materials have been employed as highly efficient laser diode pumped microlasers [3], an efficient phosphor [4], and as very attractive polarizer materials [5]. The rare earth vanadates are known as the high temperature materi- als and their synthesis by any technique insists on high temperature conditions. That is the reason why most of the earlier workers have obtained these laser crys- tals by flux or melt methods at elevated temperatures [6–9]. In spite of its excel- lent physical properties, the high-tech applications have not been realized due to crystal growth difficulties. One of the major problems encountered in RVO4 crys- tals is the presence of oxygen imperfections color centers and inclusions intro- duced during the crystal growth processes. Although YVO4 melts congruently [10], certain vanadium oxid