The YbVO4 polycrystalline materials were synthesized by liquid-phase method. New Yb stoichiometric YbVO4 single crystals with excellent quality have been grown by Czochralski technique using a- and c-direction seeds. The X-ray powder diffraction experimental results show that the YbVO4 polycrystalline material and as-grown YbVO4 crystal all possess the structure of ZrSiO4. The rocking curves from (4 0 0) and (0 0 4) diffraction planes of as-grown YbVO4 single crystal were measured on the High-Resolution X-ray Diffractometer D5005, and the full-width at half-maximum values were found to be 55.08" for (4 0 0) face and 40.87" for (0 0 4) face, respectively. The transmittance spectra of YbVO4 crystal were measured with a- and c-cut crystal samples at room temperature from 200 to 3000 nm, and there is very strong absorption peak near 970 nm. Some properties of YbVO4 crystal are compared with those of other crystals. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.