Sapphire : Synthetic sapphire

Synthetic sapphire
Synthetic sapphire crystals can be grown in cylindrical crystal boules of large size, up to many inches in diameter. As well as gemstone applications there are many other uses:

The first ever laser produced was based on the ruby, the red variety of corundum. While this laser has few applications, the Ti-sapphire laser is popular due to the relatively rare ability to tune the laser wavelength in the red-to-near infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum. It can also be easily modelocked. In these lasers, a synthetically produced sapphire crystal with chromium or titanium impurities is irradiated with intense light from a special lamp, or another laser, to create stimulated emission.

Pure sapphire boules can be sliced into wafers and polished to form transparent crystal slices. Such slices are used as watch faces in high quality watches, as the material's exceptional hardness makes the face resistant to scratching. Since sapphire ranks a 9 on the Mohs Scale, owners of such watches should still be careful to avoid exposure to diamond jewelry, and should avoid striking their watches against artificial stone and simulated stone surfaces. Such surfaces often contain materials including silicon carbide, which, like diamond, are harder than sapphire and thus capable of causing scratches (Scheel 2003).

Sapphire is highly transparent at wavelengths of light between 170 nm to 5.3 μm, as well as being five times stronger than glass. This leads to use of synthetic sapphire windows in high pressure chambers for spectroscopy.

Wafers of single crystal sapphire are also used in the semiconductor industry as a substrate for the growth of gallium nitride based devices.
Cermax Xenon arc lamp with synthetic sapphire output window

One type of Xenon Arc Lamp known as Cermax (original brand name - generically known as a ceramic body xenon lamp) use sapphire output windows that are doped with various other elements to tune their emission. In some cases, the UV emitted from the lamp during operation causes a blue glow from the window after the lamp is turned off. It is approximately the same color as Cherenkov radiation but is caused by simple phosphorescence.