Method for making an oriented optical fluoride crystal blank

Abstract

A method of making an oriented fluoride crystal blank for transmitting below 250 nm ultraviolet light includes irradiating a fluoride crystal blank with an x-ray beam, detecting the x-ray beams diffracted from the fluoride crystal blank, generating a diffraction pattern from the x-ray beam diffracted from the fluoride crystal blank, determining an angular deviation of an optical axis of the fluoride crystal blank from a specific crystallographic direction, and, if the angular deviation is not within a predefined range, modifying the fluoride crystal blank in a manner such that that the resultant angular deviation between the optical axis of the fluoride crystal blank from the specific crystallographic direction after modifying falls within the predefined range.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.