Impurities: Curse and blessing for crystal growers

Abstract

The indespensability of high-quality source materials research and development has been established for many years. However, because contributors to this field are diverse and communication of research results is often fragmented, transfer of the new knowledge is very slow. This paper describes how increasing source purity has improved the quality of several crystals, and how the addition of controlled impurities has decreased the defect density in these crystals. Experimental evidence is presented in this paper.