Calcite is a negative uniaxial crystal that has high birefringence, wide spectral transmission and availability in reasonably sized rhombs. Although is a fairly soft crystal and is easily scratched, it is ideal material used as visible and near IR polarizers, such as Glan Taylor, Glan Thompson and Glan laser.

 The yttrium orthovanadate (YVO₄) is a positive uniaxial crystal grown with Czochralski method. It has good mechanical and physical properties and is ideal for optical polarizing components because of its wide transparency range and large birefringence. It is an excellent synthetic substitute for Calcite (CaCO₃) and Rutile (TiO₂) crystals in many applications including fiber optic isolators and circulators, beam displacers, Glan polarizers and other polarizing optics, etc.

 High Temperature form BBO (a-BaB₂O₄) is a negative uniaxial crystal. It has large birefringence over the broad transparent range from 189 nm to 3500 nm. Recently, CryLight has succeeded in growing this crystal into large size. The physical, chemical, thermal and optical properties of a-BBO crystal are similar to those of b-BBO. However, the nonlinear optical properties of a-BBO crystal is vanished due to the centric symmetry with its crystal structure. It is not recommended to use for NLO processes.