Growth, properties and electrooptical applications of single crystal La3Ga5SiO14

Abstract The growth of single crystal La 3 Ga 5 SiO 14 (LGS) is briefly introduced. The transmission spectra show that the UV absorption edge is as low as 236 nm for the colorless LGS crystal sample. The dielectric constants, piezoelectric strain constants and elastic compliance constants are determined using LCR bridge, interferometric and resonance methods, respectively. The linear electrooptic coefficients γ 11 and γ 41 are measured to be 2.3 and 1.8 pm/V respectively by the interferometric method. A new kind of electrooptic Q-switch is designed by using the LGS crystal. The half-wave voltage of the Q-switch is 2250 V, and the single pulse output energy of 200 mJ is obtained with a pulse width of 9.4 ns. The damage threshold is about six times as large as that of a LiNbO 3 Q-switch under the same conditions.