Yttrium orthovanadate (YVO₄) is a transparent crystal. Undoped YVO₄ is also used to make efficient high-power polarizing prisms similar to Glan–Taylor prisms. There are two principal applications for doped yttrium orthovanadate: *Doped with

neodymium Neodymium is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Nd and atomic number 60. It is the fourth member of the lanthanide series and is considered to be one of the rare-earth element, rare-earth metals. It is a hard (physics), hard, sli ...

it forms Nd:YVO₄, an

active laser medium The active laser medium (also called a gain medium or lasing medium) is the source of optical gain within a laser. The gain results from the stimulated emission of photons through electronic or molecular transitions to a lower energy state from ...

used in

diode-pumped solid-state laser A diode-pumped solid-state laser (DPSSL) is a solid-state laser made by pumping a solid gain medium, for example, a ruby or a neodymium-doped YAG crystal, with a laser diode. DPSSLs have advantages in compactness and efficiency over other type ...

s. *Doped with

europium Europium is a chemical element; it has symbol Eu and atomic number 63. It is a silvery-white metal of the lanthanide series that reacts readily with air to form a dark oxide coating. Europium is the most chemically reactive, least dense, and soft ...

it forms Eu:YVO₄, the dominant red

phosphor A phosphor is a substance that exhibits the phenomenon of luminescence; it emits light when exposed to some type of radiant energy. The term is used both for fluorescent or phosphorescent substances which glow on exposure to ultraviolet or ...

used in

cathode-ray tube A cathode-ray tube (CRT) is a vacuum tube containing one or more electron guns, which emit electron beams that are manipulated to display images on a phosphorescent screen. The images may represent electrical waveforms on an oscilloscope, a ...

s especially in color TVs.

Basic properties

Crystal structure In crystallography, crystal structure is a description of ordered arrangement of atoms, ions, or molecules in a crystalline material. Ordered structures occur from intrinsic nature of constituent particles to form symmetric patterns that repeat ...

: **

Zircon Zircon () is a mineral belonging to the group of nesosilicates and is a source of the metal zirconium. Its chemical name is zirconium(IV) silicate, and its corresponding chemical formula is Zr SiO4. An empirical formula showing some of th ...

tetragonal In crystallography, the tetragonal crystal system is one of the 7 crystal systems. Tetragonal crystal lattices result from stretching a cubic lattice along one of its lattice vectors, so that the Cube (geometry), cube becomes a rectangular Pri ...

( tetragonal bipyramidal) ** Space group D_4h ** Lattice parameters ''a'' = ''b'' = 7.119 Å, ''c'' = 6.290 Å *

Density Density (volumetric mass density or specific mass) is the ratio of a substance's mass to its volume. The symbol most often used for density is ''ρ'' (the lower case Greek letter rho), although the Latin letter ''D'' (or ''d'') can also be u ...

: 4.24 g/cm³ *

Melting point The melting point (or, rarely, liquefaction point) of a substance is the temperature at which it changes state of matter, state from solid to liquid. At the melting point the solid and liquid phase (matter), phase exist in Thermodynamic equilib ...

: 1810–1940 °C *

Mohs hardness The Mohs scale ( ) of mineral hardness is a qualitative ordinal scale, from 1 to 10, characterizing scratch resistance of mineral In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid substance with a fair ...

glass Glass is an amorphous (non-crystalline solid, non-crystalline) solid. Because it is often transparency and translucency, transparent and chemically inert, glass has found widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in window pane ...

-like, ~5 * Knoop hardness: 480 kg/mm² *

Thermal expansion coefficient Thermal expansion is the tendency of matter to increase in length, area, or volume, changing its size and density, in response to an increase in temperature (usually excluding phase transitions). Substances usually contract with decreasing temp ...

: ** α_a = 4.43×10⁻⁶/ K ** α_c = 11.37×10⁻⁶/K *

Thermal conductivity The thermal conductivity of a material is a measure of its ability to heat conduction, conduct heat. It is commonly denoted by k, \lambda, or \kappa and is measured in W·m−1·K−1. Heat transfer occurs at a lower rate in materials of low ...

coefficient: **parallel to ''c''-axis: 5.23 W·m⁻¹·K⁻¹ **perpendicular to ''c''-axis: 5.10 W·m⁻¹·K⁻¹ *

Refractive indices In optics, the refractive index (or refraction index) of an optical medium is the ratio of the apparent speed of light in the air or vacuum to the speed in the medium. The refractive index determines how much the path of light is bent, or refrac ...

birefringence Birefringence, also called double refraction, is the optical property of a material having a refractive index that depends on the polarization and propagation direction of light. These optically anisotropic materials are described as birefrin ...

( Δ''n'' = ''n''_e - ''n''_o) and walk-off angle at 45° (ρ): **at 0.63

μm The micrometre (Commonwealth English as used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures; SI symbol: μm) or micrometer (American English), also commonly known by the non-SI term micron, is a unit of length in the International System ...

: ***''n''_e = 2.2154 ***''n''_o = 1.9929 ***Δ''n'' = 0.2225 ***''ρ'' = 6.04 **at 1.30 μm: ***''n''_e = 2.1554 ***''n''_o = 1.9500 ***Δ''n'' = 0.2054 ***''ρ''= 5.72 **at 1.55 μm: ***''n''_e = 2.1486 ***''n''_o = 1.9447 ***Δ''n'' = 0.2039 ***''ρ'' = 5.69 ** Sellmeier equation ( ''λ'' in μm): ***''n''_e²=4.59905 + 0.110534/(λ² − 0.04813) − 0.012267612 ''λ''² ***''n''_o²=3.77834 + 0.069736/(λ² − 0.04724) − 0.0108133 ''λ''²

References

{{Solid-state laser Vanadates Yttrium compounds Optical materials Crystals

Basic properties

See also

References