Study on the Crystal growth, Structure and Crystal Field splitting and Fitting of Yb:GdScO₃

A good quality (5 at.% Yb:GdScO 3 ) single crystal of Φ 30 mm × 37 mm was grown successfully by the Czochralski method. Its structure is studied by the x-ray diffraction (XRD), and its atomic coordinates are obtained by Rietveld refinement. The crystal field energy level splitting of Yb 3+ in GdScO 3 is determined by employing the absorption and photoluminescence spectra at 8 K. Only 2 F 7/2 (4) is far from the ground state 2 F 7/2 (1) by 710 cm −1 among the crystal field energy levels split from 2 F 7/2 , so it is more easier to realize the laser operation of 2 F 5/2 (1)→ 2 F 7/2 (4) with wavelength 1060 nm. The spin–orbit coupling parameters and intrinsic crystal field parameters (CFPs). The intrinsic crystal field parameters B ¯ k ( k = 2, 4, 6) of the crystal were fitted by the superposition model. The CFPs evaluated with B ¯ k and coordination factor are taken as the initial parameters to fit the crystal field energy levels of the crystal, and the crystal field parameters B q k are obtained finally with the root-mean-square deviation 9 cm −1 . It is suggested that the ligand point charge, covalency and overlap interaction are slightly weaker than charge interpenetration and coulomb exchange interaction for Yb 3+ in GdScO 3 . The obtained Hamiltonian parameters can be used to calculate crystal field energy levels and wave functions of Yb:GdScO 3 to analyze the mechanism of the luminescence or laser.