Growth and quality of gallium selenide (GaSe) crystals

High quality nonlinear infrared crystal material GaSe was grown using a seed aided Bridgman-Stockbarger method having a size of 24-26 mm in diameter and 55-70 mm in length. The crystals were characterized using X-ray diffraction, electron energy scattering, transmission spectrophotometry and infrared microscopy. The transmission spectrum showed that the infrared transmission is about 67% in an 8 mm thick sample cleaved along (001) face, and mean absorption 0.01-0.08 cm−1 in the range 0.9-15 μm. It may be suitable for the fabrication of infrared nonlinear optical devices, photoelectric analyzers of polarized light and so on. Crystals grown by this method with the described procedures may also be useful for other similar layered compounds.