Crystal growth, structure and crystal field splitting and fitting of Yb:GdScO3

A good quality (5 at.% Yb:GdScO3) single crystal of Phi 30 mm x 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 Yb3+ in GdScO3 is determined by employing the absorption and photoluminescence spectra at 8 K. Only 2F(7/2) (4) is far from the ground state 2F(7/2 )(1) by 710 cm-1 among the crystal field energy levels split from 2F(7/2 ) , so it is more easier to realize the laser operation of 2F(5/2) (1)-> 2(7/2 ) (4) with wavelength 1060 nm. The spin-orbit coupling parameters and intrinsic crystal field parameters (CFPs). The intrinsic crystal field parameters B<overline> k (k = 2, 4, 6) of the crystal were fitted by the superposition model. The CFPs evaluated with B<overline> 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 k q 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 Yb3+ in GdScO3. The obtained Hamiltonian parameters can be used to calculate crystal field energy levels and wave functions of Yb:GdScO3 to analyze the mechanism of the luminescence or laser.