Growing of crystals for industrial and in particular photonics applications is one of the crucial technologies for a modern society, as the manufacturing technology involves rare materials, a high amount of energy, and a lot of dedicated process knowledge, while the crystal as a product itself is a core component of many photonics systems such as the broad field of lasers for various applications.

The value chain for crystal growing nevertheless only rarely based on Zero-Defect Manufacturing (ZDM) approaches, which could enable for a sustainable implementation of this crucial process.

SMART-Growth aims at applying ZDM by means of Artificial Intelligence (AI) approaches to address the main ZDM pillars Detection, Prediction and Prevention of failures in a typical crystal growth process in order to enhance the yield of the crystal production, to reduce the amount of energy that is needed and scrap that is created, and to improve the quality of the grown crystal.