Effect of post-growth anneals in oxygen-containing atmosphere on the microhardness of single crystal calcium molybdate CaMoO₄

Single crystal calcium molybdate CaMoO₄ is a well-known material. However the interest to CaMoO₄ has recently grown due to a number of its important applications including as a working material in cryogenic scintillation bolometers. CaMoO₄ single crystals acquire blue color during growth due to the presence of color-center type defect centers which are unacceptable for optical applications. Color can be eliminated through annealing in an oxygen containing atmosphere, following which required optical components can be produced from the single crystals by mechanical treatment (cutting, polishing etc.). Therefore assessment of the mechanical properties of these single crystal materials is an important task for the optimal solution of issues occurring in the fabrication of optical components and their further practical application. There are but scarce data on the mechanical properties of CaMoO₄, and the available ones have been reported without allowance for anisotropy. There is a significant scatter of data on the Mohs hardness of the single crystals, ranging from 3.3 to 6 in different publications. In this work we present data on calcium molybdate single crystals in the initial state and after high-temperature anneals of different durations in an oxygen containing atmosphere. We show that long-term annealing leads to decolorization of the crystals. Calcium molybdate single crystals prove to be quite brittle: the brittleness index Zp of the crystals in the initial state is the highest and equals 5, while annealing reduces the brittleness index to 4. The Palmqvist toughness factors S have been calculated The limit indentation destruction loads F_lim have been determined and annealing in an oxygen containing atmosphere has been shown to increase F_lim by 2.5 times for the Z cut and by 10 times for the X cut. The microhardness of the crystals has been shown to exhibit a II type anisotropy: the microhardness of all the specimens was higher for the Z cut than for the X cut. The microhardness anisotropy coefficients KH of the specimens have been evaluated. The bond ionicity degree I has been calculated on the basis of the experimentally measured microhardness.