Crystal growth and structure of pure and rare-earth doped barium sodium niobate (BNN)

Through the exploitation of the corresponding ternary phase diagram, the barium sodium niobate (BNN) crystal growth by several techniques: Czochralski, Laser Heated Pedestal Growth and Micro-Pulling Down is surveyed. It is pointed out that the fiber crystal growth contributed to obtain important advances on the crystal structure, doping by rare-earth ions and growing behavior leading to what can be considered as an attractive new material. The further growth of high optical quality bulk crystals could now lead to the commercial development of this material with outstanding non-linear optical properties.