Effect of Nd3+ on the growth and quality of KDP crystals

摘要

KDP crystals were rapidly grown from solutions doped with different Nd3+ concentrations. During the growth process, "foggy" inclusions were selectively captured in the pyramidal sector of KDP crystal and hourglass shaped crystals were obtained. It is found that the nonuniform distribution of Nd3+ ions causes remarkable differences in optical quality between prismatic and pyramidal sectors. With increasing Nd3+ concentration, the optical quality is greatly decreased for pyramidal sectors, while the change is not so obvious for prismatic sectors.