COMPANY PROFILE

(SUBMITTED BY L. A. BOATNER, ORNL)

Commercial Crystal Laboratories "Today" and the "Early Years"

Commercial Crystal Laboratories, Inc. began life as the Commercial Crystal  Division of NL Industries, formerly known as the National Lead Company.  Commercial Crystal Labs. is one of the oldest crystal-growth laboratories in the United States and is the only production flame fusion  growth facility in the U. S.  Its facilities have been in continuous operation since the early 1940's, and the company has participated in numerous contract crystal-growth research programs over the years.

Commercial Crystal Labs (CCL) has played a long and significant role in the crystal-growth field in the United States.  Literally  tens of thousands of specialty single crystals have been grown at Commercial Crystals for a wide range of applications.  Strontium titanate single crystals were initially  synthesized and grown at CCL.  When  L. G. Van Uitert of Bell Labs needed a large number of crystals of Nd:YAG in  order to determine the proper dopant level of Neodymium for optimum laser operation, he called upon one of the early  crystal-growth pioneers, Leon Merker of Commercial Crystals, to assist him.  Due to its fast crystal-growth turnaround time, flame fusion was the perfect process with which to undertake such a study.   At about the same time, Commercial Crystal Labs grew Fe:TiO2  and Cr:TiO2  crystals under contract for RCA for use as masers.  These masers worked quite well but other competing technologies eventually won acceptance over Rutile.  Art Linz of Top Seeded Solution Growth fame began his very successful career at Commercial Crystal Labs and later worked at MIT's Lincoln Labs.  

Today, Commercial Crystal Labs. is a prime contractor to  the U.S. Army  Night Vision Lab for materials research and is  also a contractor to all other U.S. military branches,  providing many defense-related products for weapons, satellites, and RADAR applications.  In fact, the earliest Sidewinder and Red Eye missile guidance systems had infrared optics made using crystals grown and fabricated at CCL.   CCL presently manufactures crystal optics and windows for the more-contemporary "Smart Bombs."  In the early 1980's, CCL developed low-strain optical-quality GaP crystals for use as acousto-optic modulators in multi-channel analyzers for electronic warfare.  At present,  CCL is under contract to supply crystals and crystal fabrication for a variety of satellite applications for  NASA and others.

Included in the repertoire of CCL's crystal-growth capabilities are the  flame-fusion, Czochralski, HP-LEC, skull-melting, top-seeded solution growth, arc-fusion, vertical and horizontal Bridgman, vapor-phase growth, and aqueous solution growth techniques.  Commercial Crystal Labs. also has mechanical design capabilities and an extensive machine shop that is used to build all the crystal-growth and fabrication equipment utilized by the company.  CCL also has a significant crystal slicing and polishing operation.   

In 1981,  a proprietary lapping and polishing technique was developed at CCL  to impart an Angstrom-level  polish to virtually any oxide substrate.  At that time,  the surface was characterized by Rutherford Backscattering; and later, Atomic Force Microscopy measurements confirmed those results.  Today, after adding years of refinements to its polishing technique,  Commercial Crystal Labs is well known for the quality and extensive variety of its epitaxy-ready substrates.

Commercial Crystal Labs. has a customer list that includes many universities and high technology companies around the world, and the Company  has been a CRADA partner with both Oak Ridge National Lab. and Los Alamos National Labs. in joint efforts on the development of new substrate and laser materials.

In 1996, in association with L. A. Boatner and Ron Feenstra of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, CCL was awarded an R & D 100 Award for its work on KTaO3.  Combining techniques developed at ORNL for compound synthesis and crystal seeding  with Top Seeded Solution Growth technology developed at Commercial Crystal Labs., resulted in 2" optical-quality crystals.

Commercial  Crystal Labs offers many services and products including:  custom  slicing and polishing,  materials and crystal growth R&D, prism fabrication,  solid state waveguides, windows and optics, and film-growth substrates.

Also offered by CCL are the following production crystals (including doped crystals):  MgO, SrTiO3,  TiO2, sapphire, spinel,  NiO, CoO, MnO, ZnO, LaAlO3, NdGaO3, CeO2, YAG, GGG, SGGG, YSZ, quartz, Si, Ge, GaP, CdS, LiNbO3, LiTaO3, CaWO4, Cr2O3, CaF2, LiF, MgF2, SrF2, BaF2, Y2O3, BBO, LNP, calcite and crystalline Nb:STO targets for laser-ablation film-growth applications.

In addition, the following, often one-of-a-kind,  doped and undoped research crystals (approximately one thousand in stock) representing many years of R & D effort are available:   mixed fluorides, mixed gallates, mixed aluminates, SBN's, NBN's, KLN's, BLNN's, mixed YAG's,  mixed GGG-NGG's, molybdates, tungstates, BNN's and others.

Detailed information regarding the products and services offered by Commercial Crystal Laboratories can be obtained by contacting:

Michael Urbanik P.E., President

Commercial Crystal Laboratories, Inc.

4406 Arnold Avenue

Naples, Florida 34104

Phone/Fax:  239-643-5959

e-mail: guru@crystalguru.com

web: www.crystalguru.com