Rare earth site preference in the doped laser host material Sc _2SiO _5. A single-crystal x-ray study

摘要

Single crystals of the laser host material Sc _2SiO _5 as well as thulium- (4 at.-%) and ytterbium- (5 at.-%) doped samples were prepared by the Czochralski technique. The structures of Sc _2SiO _5, Ym ~3+:Sc _2SiO _5, and Yb ~3+:Sc _2SiO _5 were refined on the basis of high-quality single-crystal X-ray diffraction data: Monoclinic Y _2SiO _5 type, space group C2/c. The X-ray data unambiguously show that the larger rare earth cations exclusively occupy the 8 f site with oxygen coordination number 7.