Method for forming aluminum oxide material used in optical data storage
AssigneeLandauer, Inc.
InventorMark Akselrod
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The present invention provides aluminum oxide crystalline materials including dopants and oxygen vacancy defects and methods of making such crystalline materials. The crystalline materials of the present invention have particular utility in optical data storage applications.
Claims53
A method for making a crystalline material comprising the steps of:
- (a) doping a base material comprising Al2O3 with a first dopant comprising magnesium to form a doped material;
- and
- (b) crystallizing said doped material in highly reducing atmosphere in order to form said crystalline material, wherein said crystalline material includes a plurality of at least one type of oxygen vacancy defect.
34 The method of claim 33, wherein said Mg-doped mixture is doped with said second dopant and said third dopant while said Mg-doped mixture is heated in a furnace and wherein said first dopant is present in said doped material in a quantity of between 2 and 5000 ppm of base material by weight;
- said second dopant is present in the gas atmosphere of the furnace during crystallization in a quantity of between 2 and 50,000 ppm by volume;
- and said third dopant is present in the gas atmosphere of the furnace during crystallization in a quantity of between 100 and 10,000 ppm by volume.
41 The method of claim 39, wherein sub-step (e) is carried out in a gas atmosphere comprising argon and hydrogen, and hydrogen comprises about 100 to 10,000 ppm of the amount of argon in the gas atmosphere by volume.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.