Na-doped optical Germanium bulk crystals

In an effort to develop a material for infrared (IR) optics with improved parameters, bulk crystals of optical germanium doped with Na have been first grown and studied. Single-crystalline and coarse-crystalline Ge:Na boules of different shapes and dimensions, up to 10 kg by weight, have been grown. Sodium was incorporated into the Ge crystal during the crystal growing from the melt. Despite the fact that Na contamination in the source material was not strictly controlled, the density of Na in the grown crystals determined by the neutron activation analysis as well as by the glow discharge mass spectrometry did not exceed 1015 cm−3. Just this value may be supposed to be close to the solubility limit of Na incorporated in Ge in the course of bulk crystal growth. A first demonstration of donor behavior of Na in bulk Ge crystals is made by means of a thermoelectric type of testing. An interstitial location of Na impurity has been verified by experiments on donor drift in the dc electric field. The crystals are grown with free electron density in the range from 5⋅1013 to 4⋅1014 cm−3 which is optimal for using Ge crystals as an optical material for fabricating passive elements of the IR technique. A comparison between the properties of Ge:Na crystals and Ge crystals doped with Sb, a conventional impurity in optical germanium, grown under the same technological conditions and from the same intrinsic Ge as a source material, revealed a number of advantages of Ge:Na crystals; among them, the higher transparency in the IR region, smaller radiation scattering and higher regular optical transmission, lower dislocation density, more uniform distribution of electrical and optical characteristics over the crystal volume, the identity of optical parameters in the single-crystalline, and coarse-crystalline boules. No degradation of optical elements fabricated from Ge:Na crystals was detected in the course of their commercial application, starting from 1998.