Birefringent Crystals: Yttrium Orthovanadate (YVO4)

The Yttrium Orthovanadate (YVO4) is a positive uniaxial crystal grown with Czochralski method. It has good temperature stability and physical and mechanical properties. It is ideal for optical polarizing components because of its wide transparency range and large birefringence. It is an excellent synthetic substitute for Calcite (CaCO3) and Rutile (TiO2) crystals in many applications including fiber optic isolators and circulators, interleavers, beam displacers and other polarizing optics(refer to table 1).

Table 1.Comparison of basic properties betweenYVO4 and Other Birefringent Crystals.

		YVO4	TiO2	CaCO3	LiNbO3
Thermal Expansion (/℃)	c-axis	11.4×10-6	9.2×10-6	26.3×10-6	16.7×10-6
	a-axis	4.4×10-6	7.1×10-6	5.4×10-6	7×10-6
Refractive Index	no	1.9447@1550nm	2.454@1530nm	1.6346@1497nm	2.2151@1440nm
	ne	2.1486@1550nm	2.710@1530nm	1.4774@1497nm	2.1413@1440nm
Birefringence(ne-no)		0.2039@1550nm	0.256@1530nm	-0.1572@1497nm	-0.0738@1440nm
Mohs Hardness		5	6.5	3	5
Deliquescence		None	None	Weak	None
Transparency range		0.4-5μm	0.4-5μm	0.35-2.3μm	0.4-5μm

 

We offer Nd:YVO4 specifications

Dimension Tolerance	±0.1mm
Flatness	λ/10 @ 632.8nm
Wavefront distortion	λ/10@ 632.8nm
Surface Quality	10/5  per MIL-O-13830B
Parallelism	10″
Perpendicularity	10′
Bevel/Chamfer	<0.1mm@45deg.
Chips	<0.1mm
Clear Aperture	>95%
Coating	AR/HR/PR coating upon customer’s request
Damage Threshold	750MW/CM2 at 1064nm, TEM00, 10ns, 10Hz
Quality Warranty Period	One year under proper use

YVO4 crystals with diffusion bonded Nd: YVO4 are also available from us.