Abstract: The publications on crystals in the past 10 years were analysed by means of the database of Materials Science Citation Index(MSCI).The number of publications increased fast at a rate of about 1000 papers per year from 1991 to 1999.Laser crystals attracted more attention due to the fast expansion of the information industry.Rapid increase of publications on KDP,SBN and PMN(PZN) shows that these crystals are hot topics in the crystal field recently.The vertical Bridgman technique became more and more important in the past 10 years due to its advantages of low temperature gradient in solid-liquid interface and low production cost.

Key words: The publications on crystals in the past 10 years were analysed by means of the database of Materials Science Citation Index(MSCI).The number of publications increased fast at a rate of about 1000 papers per year from 1991 to 1999.Laser crystals attracted more attention due to the fast expansion of the information industry.Rapid increase of publications on KDP,SBN and PMN(PZN) shows that these crystals are hot topics in the crystal field recently.The vertical Bridgman technique became more and more important in the past 10 years due to its advantages of low temperature gradient in solid-liquid interface and low production cost.