Structural and Optical Studies of Oxide Single Crystals Grown by the Czochralski Method

In this paper, we used the Czochralski method to obtain good-quality yttrium aluminium garnet (Y3Al5O12)—YAG and yttrium aluminium garnet doped with neodymium—Nd:YAG crystals. The investigations were based on the growth mechanisms and the shape of the liquid/solid interface on the crystal properties and incorporation of Nd3+ ions. The obtained single YAG and Nd:YAG crystals were studied by use of Raman and IR spectroscopy. There are strong metal oxygen vibrations in region 650–800 cm−1 which are characteristics of Al–O bond: peaks at 784/854, 719/763 and 691/707 cm−1 correspond to asymmetric stretching vibrations in tetrahedral arrangement. Peaks at 566/582, 510/547 and 477/505 cm−1 are asymmetric stretching vibrations, and 453/483 cm−1 is symmetric vibration of Al–O bond in octahedral arrangement of garnet structure. Lower energy peaks correspond to translation and liberation of cations in different coordinations—tetrahedral, octahedral and dodecahedral in the case of the lowest modes.