Growth and characterization of high quality LuVO3 single crystals

The floating zone method using an image furnace under reducing atmosphere has proven successful in growing high-quality LuVO3 single crystals with the largest dimensions to date. Crystals of several mm(3) in dimension, and thus large enough for Resonant X-ray Scattering measurements have been obtained, and the growth strategy, described in detail, could be in principle easily extendable to other members of the REVO3 perovskite class. Crystal quality was checked by Laue photographs and structural analysis of LuVO3 was performed by single-crystal X-ray diffraction. (c) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.