Growth and characterization of PbB4O7 single crystals

Good-quality and fairly large-sized single crystals of PbB4O7 (PbO·2B2O3) were grown by the top-seeded melt-growth method. The transparency range of these crystals was measured to be 240–3600 nm. The transmission fraction for an as-grown crystal plate was found to be ∼80%. Characterization of the grown crystals was carried out using X-ray diffraction, DTA/TG, and X-ray fluorescence techniques to establish their quality.