Optical Floating Zone Furnace (Crystal Systems Inc.)

The floating zone method enables not only the growth of congruent melting materials, incongruent melting materials employing the TSCG (travelling solvent crystal growth) – technique can also be grown. Different types of atmospheres like argon, oxygen, compressed air during the crystal growth experiment can be chosen.

For producing green bodies a cold isostatic press HP-M-SD-200 (Crystal Systems Inc., Japan) with up to 100 kN pressure is used. The sintering process can be done in the high temperature lab in a temperature range up to 1800°C. For electron-microprobe analyses the diamond wire saw Well 4240 or the low speed saw with diamond blade for sample preparation will be used.