Growth mechanism of YAG single crystal in planar waveguide by solid-state crystal growth method

Abstract

In this paper, we researched the growth mechanism of solid-state crystal growth (SSCG) method in planar waveguide. The effect of tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) inside YAG (yttrium aluminum garnet) ceramic matrixes on the YAG single-crystal growth was studied. The results indicated that the crystal growth increased with increasing TEOS content. Theoretical analysis confirmed that the solid-state crystal growth kinetics could be fitted by the Lifshitz–Slyozov–Wagner law. Additionally, the segregation of silicon was observed, the SSCG process with SiO2 effectively eliminated the pores in the YAG ceramic matrices via diffusion to the growth interface between the crystal and the ceramic. We successfully obtained high transparency YAG single crystal using the SSCG method, which transmittance value reached 83.62% at 1064 nm.