Influence of activators on the optical and mechanical properties of ZrO2-Y2O3 crystals

The authors have investigated the optical and mechanical properties of crystals of ZrO2-Y2O3, doped with various impurities: W (0.1, 0.5, 1 wt.%), Cr (0.1 wt.%), Nb (0.1 wt.%), Cu (2.5 wt.%), and Er (5 wt.%). All the crystals have a birefringence of about 0.5-3.5·10-5 and a dichroism of about 1·10-6, i.e., they contain a tetragonal phase and are not completely ordered. The crystals doped with W (0.1 wt. %) have a microhardness anomaly, attributed to a change of structure. It is shown that the value of the microhardness increases with decreasing atomic number of the dopant element