Comparison of High Temperature Crystal Lattice and Bulk Thermal Expansion Measurements of LGT Single Crystal

Abstract

Among the langasite family of crystals (LGX), the three most popular materials are langasite (LGS, La3Ga5SiO14), langatate (LGT, La3Ga5.5Ta0.5O14) and langanite (LGN, La3Ga5.5Nb0.5O14). The LGX crystals have received significant attention for acoustic wave (AW) device applications due to several properties, which include: (1) piezoelectric constants about two and a half times those of quartz, thus allowing the design of larger bandwidth filters; (2) existence of temperature compensated orientations; (3) high density, with potential for reduced vibration and acceleration sensitivity; and (4) possibility of operation at high temperatures, since the LGX crystals do not present phase changes up to their melting point above 1400degC. The LGX crystals' capability to operate at elevated temperatures calls for an investigation on the growth quality and the consistency of these materials' properties at high temperature. One of the fundamental crystal properties is the thermal expansion coefficients in the entire temperature range where the material is operational. This work focuses on the measurement of the LGT thermal expansion coefficients from room temperature (25degC) to 1200degC. Two methods of extracting the thermal expansion coefficients have been used and compared: a) dual push-rod dilatometry, which provides the bulk expansion; and b) x-ray powder diffraction, which provides the lattice expansion. Both methods were performed over the entire temperature range and considered multiple samples taken from <001> Czochralski grown LGT material. The thermal coefficients of expansion were extracted by approximating each expansion data set to a third order polynomial fit over three temperature ranges reported in this work: 25degC to 400degC, 400degC to 900degC, 900degC to 1200degC. An accuracy of fit better than 35ppm for the bulk expansion and better than 10ppm for the lattice expansion have been obtained with the aforementioned polynomial fitting. The percentage difference between the bulk and the lattice fitted expansion responses over the entire temperature range of 25degC to 1200degC is less than 2% for the three crystalline axes, which indicates the high quality and growth consistency of the LGT crystal measured