Abstract
Fluorapatite is a well known neodymium laser host material. However, the level of the highest neodymium concentration present makes it unsuitable for minlaser applications. An investigation throughout the apatite family led to the existence of a new laser material with high efficiency: Na
2Nd
2Pb
6(PO
4)
6Cl
2. Because of its instability at the melting point, the compound was grown using the slow cooling and evaporative flux technique. A representative number of compositions of the ternary diagram chloropatite-PbO-PbCl
2 was obtained. High transparency crystals of 2X2X5 mm in size were obtained.