Czochralski Growth Furnaces
This furnace is used to grow crystals from melt using the Czochralski (CZ) “crystal pulling” technique. Many crystals have been pulled in these furnace, including Nd:YAG, Ce:YAG scintillators as well as other novel oxide crystals. New dopants have been attempted which increase the light output of the scintillator by reducing the color centers which provide a new loss channel mechanism. Two RF furnaces are available with one focusing on vertical gradient freeze (VGF) and the other on CZ growth. The VGF furnace operates at 2.5 kHz, while the CZ furnace operates at 25 kHz.
The custom-built Czochralski (CZ) oxide crystal growth system has unique capabilities, including rotation of the crucible during growth, lowering and raising of the crucible through the 25k Hz RF induction coil, dynamic atmosphere control, and a load cell to measure the pulled crystal. A double walled design for the furnace facilitates water cooling during growth. Ga2O3 crystals with a variety of dopants have been grown on this system, including undoped, Mg, Zr and Hf doped. Other oxide materials such as ruby, sapphire, LiAlO2, CdTeO3, and materials such as YAG have been grown successfully with this furnace.
Laboratories: ETRL-002, Thermal Fluids 111