Abstract: The thermal field of growing Yb:YAG laser crystal with a diameter of 10 inch has been designed and fabricated, and the structure of single crystal growth furnace has been improved. The Yb:YAG crystal with a diameter of 252 mm and a cylinder length of nearly 260 mm has been successfully grown by induction heating Czochralski method combined with automatic diameter control system. There is no visible crack and scattering particle under the irradiation of 5 mW green laser and 20 mW He-Ne laser in the boule. The optical uniformity and stress of the boule was inspected after polishing. The results show that the available sectors of this boule have good optical uniformity and uniform stress distribution. A crystal slab with size of 152 mm×11.5 mm×260 mm can be selected in one available sector of this boule, and its transmitted wavefront distortion is 0.29λ/inch@633 nm.

Key words: Yb:YAG, laser crystal, Czochralski method, slab, wavefront distortion