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Undoped and Cr doped \b{eta}-Ga2O3 (100) single crystals are grown by optical floating zone method. The full width at half maximum of rocking curve is found to be 106 arcsec for undoped Ga2O3 crystals whereas the 100 and 200 ppm of Cr doped Ga2O3 crystals display multiple rocking curves with large peak widths indicating the presence of structural defects. Raman measurements reveal broadening in the vibrational mode of ~ 350 cm-1 with a shoulder peak indicating the Cr3+ dopants preferentially substitute for Ga3+ at the octahedral sites. Further, the Cr doped Ga2O3 crystals display strong optical absorption bands about 420 and 597 nm in the UV-Vis spectroscopy. Moreover, the observation of sharp characteristic photoluminescence emission lines at 690 and 697 nm also confirms the Cr substitution in the doped crystals. The indentation hardness increases nearly linear from 13.0 to 17.9 GPa whilst the indentation modulus decreases from 224.9 to 202.4 GPa upon Cr doping of 200 ppm in \b{eta}-Ga2O3. The structural defects caused by the Cr doping interrupt the movement of indentation induced dislocations that results in the increase of hardness of the Cr doped \b{eta}-Ga2O3 (100) single crystals., Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures

A crack free and high structural quality Sr2Nb2O7 single crystals were grown by the optical float zone method using optimized growth parameters. Laue pattern confirms single crystalline nature of the grown crystal. Temperature dependent Raman and Brillouin light scattering studies reveal a significant shift in phonon modes across normal to incommensurate phase transition (Tn-in) which occurs ~ 488 K. In the temperature range from 900 down to 500 K, two optical phonon modes about 63 (B1 mode) and 54 cm-1 (A1 mode) were observed. The frequency of A1 mode strongly decreases with an increase in temperature above the Tn-in while the frequency of this mode almost remains constant below the Tn-in. In contrast the frequency of B1 phonon mode is found to increase with temperature in the range of 500 - 900 K but it does not display a significant shift below the phase transition temperature. In addition in the incommensurate phase a new optical phonon mode at 35 cm-1 also begins to appear and exhibits strong stiffening behavior with increase in temperature in the range of 300 - 488 K. Moreover, the anomalous behavior of the acoustic phonon across Tn-in were further probed using Brilliouin scattering. Longitudinal acoustic phonon mode at 41 GHz exhibits strong change in slope near Tn-in. In addition, the transverse acoustic modes at 28.6 and 22.4 GHz also exhibit strong anomalies with minimum in frequency near Tn-in. The inelastic light scattering studies provide valuable information on the phase transition., Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures

A novel bottom-cooling high-temperature solution growth technique is developed for growing large-sized relaxor ferroelectric 0.91Pb(Zn1/3Nb2/3O3)-0.09PbTiO3 (PZN-PT) single crystals. During the growth, an inverse temperature gradient is maintained in the crucible base by flowing air at a controlled rate. This method restricts the number of spontaneously nucleated crystals at crucible bottom, reduces loss of volatile PbO component and favours the growth of large-sized PZN-PT single crystals. Large-sized PZN-PT single crystals of dimensions ~ 22x20x14 mm3 are reproducibly grown by the proposed method. The electrical characteristics of the PZN-PT wafers oriented along the <100>, <010> and <001> directions are investigated. PZN-PT wafers oriented along the <001> direction exhibited superior piezoelectric coefficient (d33) of ~ 2221 pm/V. The homogeneity of the physical parameters is analysed by preparing 10 elements with dimensions of ~5x2.5x2.5 mm3 which were cut from single wafer oriented along the <001> direction. The ferro-, piezo- and dielectric characteristics of these wafers were found to be highly uniform with small standard deviation. The observation of d33 value with less than 2 % deviation from mean value confirms the growth of high quality PZN-PT single crystals., Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures

We report on the indigenous design and development of laboratory scale travelling heater method (THM) system to grow detector grade Cd0.9Zn0.1Te (CdZnTe) single crystals. THM system mainly consists of two-zone furnace with a tuneable temperature gradient (30 - 80 C/cm), high precision translation (1 - 25 mm per day) and rotation (1 - 50 rpm) assemblies to meet the stringent conditions that are essential to grow detector grade CdZnTe single crystals. Further, a load cell in the THM system enables continuous monitoring of the growth. Systematic growth experiments were performed to optimize the various growth parameters in order to achieve large grain single crystals. Herein, the effect of temperature gradient and growth rate on the increase in grain size is discussed in detail. Each successful growth experiment yields a minimum of four detector grade elements of dimensions 10 x 10 x 5 mm3 from a starting charge of 100 g of CdZnTe. The crystalline nature and quality of the detector elements were evaluated using Laue, NIR transmission spectroscopy and I-V characteristics. Crystals with resistivity greater than ~ 1-10 giga-ohm-cm were identified for testing gamma ray detection. The photo peak of 137Cs was resolved with an energy resolution of 4.2 % at 662 keV and its measured electron mobility lifetime product is found to be ~ 3.3 x 10-3 cm2/V. The demonstration of the gamma ray detection with a relatively high {\mu}{\tau} product is the testimony to the successful growth of detector grade CdZnTe single crystals by an indigenously developed THM system., Comment: 20 pages, 9 figures

We report on Raman and photoluminescence spectroscopic studies on oxygen vacancy induced structural disorder in Gd2Ti2O7-d single crystals grown by optical floating zone technique under argon atmosphere. The oxygen vacancies in Gd2Ti2O7-d wafers decrease with thermal annealing in an air atmosphere. The full width at half maximum of X-ray diffraction rocking curve decreases from 245 to 157 arc-second and the optical transmittance increases from 23 to 87 % (at 1000 nm) upon post growth thermal annealing. Raman spectroscopic studies reveal a monotonic increase in intensity of O-Gd-O (Eg) and Ti-O (A1g) stretching modes with thermal annealing. Since these modes are associated with modulation of oxygen x parameter which is sensitive to Ti-O octahedron distortion, the increase in Raman intensity indicates an improvement in structural ordering of oxygen sub-lattice in Gd2Ti2O7-d. Moreover, the photoluminescence studies also corroborate the Raman analysis in terms of reduction of structural defects associated with oxygen vacancies as a function of thermal annealing. This study demonstrates the effectiveness of using Raman spectroscopy to probe the structural disorder in Gd2Ti2O7-d crystals., Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures, 1 table

We report on the growth of Y2Ti2O7 single crystals by optical floating zone technique. X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy studies confirm the structural quality of the crystal. The UV-Vis optical studies reveal that the grown crystals have a high optical transparency with an optical band gap of 3.44 eV. The hardness of Y2Ti2O7 single crystal is measured for the first time using nanoindentation. The measured hardness, indentation and bulk modulus are found to be 16.4$\pm$0.4, 321.1$\pm$6.9 and 243.3$\pm$5.2 GPa respectively, which are higher than its polycrystalline counterpart and its constituent metal oxides, Y2O3 and TiO2., Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, 1 table; Accepted for publication in Scripta Materialia (2020)

We report on the growth, structural and optical properties of YAlO3 single crystals grown by optical floating zone technique. Powder X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopic studies confirm the phase purity of the crystals. Raman analysis reveals that the intensity and line-width of Raman bands increase significantly with beta irradiation indicating the formation of structural defects in YAlO3 lattice. The optical properties are studied through UV-visible absorption, and photoluminescence emission and excitation spectroscopies under pre- and post- beta irradiation. The optical studies indicate the presence of Sm and Cr impurities by exhibiting characteristic emission lines in the orange red region. Further, a systematic study on the thermoluminescence (TL) characteristics of the crystal is also carried out at different doses of beta irradiation. The crystals exhibit a prominent TL glow peak at 239 C for less than 5 Gy doses while a weak second glow peak evolves at higher doses. Also, the crystals show a nearly linear dose response in the studied range from 0.1 to 10 Gy. The glow curve analysis reveals that the TL emission obeys the first order kinetics model. Based on the optical studies, the plausible mechanism for the TL glow curve is discussed in terms of the intrinsic defects and impurities that are present in the crystal., Comment: 21 pages, 9 figures; Accepted for publication in "Optical Materials"

The ferroelectric phase of the multiferroic hexagonal manganites (h-ReMnO3) has been reported to undergo a series of magnetic transitions involving long-range ordering/reorientation of 4fRe3+ and/or 3dMn3+ spins below room temperature. These transitions have attracted a lot of attention in recent years due to the geometrically frustrated nature of magnetic interactions. We have revisited these transitions in high quality single crystals of h-DyMnO3 using dc and ac susceptibility measurements as a function of temperature (T), magnetic field (H) and frequency (w) supplemented by specific heat measurements. Taking h-DyMnO3 as an example, we show that the Dy3+ spins below TN~68K are in a superferrimagnetic (SFIM) state whereas they undergo spin-glass (SG) transition below TDy3+~7K. Our observations demonstrate that neither the N\'eel transition at TN~68K nor the transition at TDy3+~7K is associated with long-range ordered states of Dy3+ spins as believed so far in the literature. The SG state of h-DyMnO3 is quite exotic as it occurs in an ordered compound purely due to geometrical frustration without any random disorder. Further, it shows an interesting crossover from de Almeida-Thouless type exponent (m=2/3) to Gabay-Toulouse type (m=2) with increasing field which cannot be explained in terms of the existing mean field theories of SG transition in Ising or Heisenberg systems but is expected for a vector X-Y SG system. Our observations call for a systematic reinvestigation of the nature of magnetic transitions involving Re3+ ions in other h-ReMnO3 also., Comment: Manuscript 17 Pages with 3 figures and Supplemental information 7 Pages with 5 figures