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Single crystals growth and Pechini synthesis of δ-BiB3O6:Pr3+

Maciej J. Chrunik 1Andrzej Majchrowski 1Edward Michalski 2Przemysław Morawiak 1Józef Żmija 2Ivan V. Kityk 3

1. Military University of Technology, Institute of Applied Physics, ul. Kaliskiego 2, Warszawa 00-908, Poland
2. Military University of Technology, Institute of Optoelectronics (IOE), Kaliskiego 2, Warszawa 00-908, Poland
3. Czestochowa University of Technology, Electrical Engineering Department, Armii Krajowej 13/15, Częstochowa 42201, Poland

Abstract

Monoclinic α-BiB3O6 (α–BIBO) single crystals have excellent nonlinear optical (NLO) properties. They find numerous applications in second harmonic generators (SHG), optical parametric oscillators (OPO) and other NLO devices [1]. In the past there were taken efforts to dope α-BIBO with rare earths (RE) active ions (Nd3+, Yb3+) to create a material joining both NLO and lasing properties. It would lead to self frequency doubling (SFD) applications. Unfortunately it was shown that the level of RE doping of α phase is insufficient [2]. According to Aleksandrovsky et al. [3] another BiB3O6 NLO phase, namely orthorhombic δ-BIBO, can be also crystallized from the stoichiometric melts. Moreover it was shown recently that the δ phase, despite its higher density than in case of α phase, can be efficiently doped with some RE ions such as Nd3+ [4]. It was proved that some RE dopants can stabilize the orthorhombic δ-BIBO phase, probably due to the fact that it is isostructural to REB3O6 [5]. This distinctive feature of δ-BIBO allows to obtain significantly high doping level of some RE3+ cations, reaching up to 15 at.% for La, Pr, Ce and Nd.

Our investigations were devoted to synthesis of δ-BIBO phase doped with Pr3+ ions as a material for photoinduced SHG experiments. To obtain δ-BIBO:Pr3+ samples two approaches were used. Single crystal growth was carried out by Kyropoulos technique from stoichiometric melts under conditions of low temperature gradients, while δ-BIBO powders were synthesized by means of sol-gel Pechini method by citric way [6]. In current work we describe the details of δ-Bi1-xPrxB3O6 samples synthesis (x = 0.025 and 0.075) and their XRD characterization, determining precise lattice parameters of orthorhombic phase using Cohen method [7]. Samples obtained by Pechini method were also characterized by calculating crystallite size and lattice strain using Williamson-Hall method [8] comprised to Scherrer formula. Photoinduced SHG of YAG: Nd3+ 1.064 µm laser radiation in obtained δ-BIBO:Pr3+ samples was investigated similarly to the method described in Ref [9]. Obtained results show that Pr3+ doping increases NLO properties of δ-BIBO.



REFERENCES

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Presentation: Poster at 17th International Conference on Crystal Growth and Epitaxy - ICCGE-17, Topical Session 7, by Maciej J. Chrunik
See On-line Journal of 17th International Conference on Crystal Growth and Epitaxy - ICCGE-17

Submitted: 2013-04-14 22:32
Revised:   2013-04-17 22:58