Measurement of refractive index of GaP crystal over a large temperature range using interferometry

The refractive index of GaP single crystal was measured through room temperature (300K) to 1200K at a wavelength of 780 nm by using an interferometry with a laser diode. To get a more accurate result, the thermal expansion coefficient of GaP crystal, which would be one parameter for the measurement of the refractive index, was measured by a diratometer equipped with laser interferometry against temperature in the range from room temperature to 973K. It was confirmed that the linear thermal expansion coefficient was a function of temperature. In this report, an empirical function was obtained to calculate the refractive index at any temperature for GaP crystal. The result shows that the refractive index of GaP varies from 3.1907 to 3.3354 in the temperature range from 300K to 1200K at the wavelength of 780nm.