Abstract: The LiNbO₃:Cr crystals with the sizes up to φ20mm×60mm were grown by the Czochralski technique. The absorption spectrum shows that there are two strong absorption wideband peaks and one weak
absorption peak belonging to Cr3⁺ ion in the crystal. The peak values of two strong absorption wideband peaks are 481nm and 657nm, which correspond to ⁴A₂→⁴T₁ and ⁴A₂→⁴T₂
transitions, respectively. The weak absorption peak at 727nm corresponds to ⁴A₂→²E (R line) transition; The fluorescence spectrum shows that one emission wideband peak ranging from
800nm to 982nm coexists with one weak emission peak at 750nm corresponding to ^4T_2→2E transition. The peak value of emission wideband is 870nm, which corresponds to ⁴T₂→⁴A₂
transition. The crystal field and Racah parameters were calculated, the values of D_q, B and C are 1522.1, 542.5 and 3218.7cm^-1, D_q/B=2.81 indicates that it has an stronger crystal
field. The result shows that the wideband tunable laser can be gotten from this crystal because it not only has the necessary spectra characteristics required for tunable laser crystal but also has the good
physics chemical properties. Furthermore, the UV laser at about 410nm can also be gotten from the crystal by its self-frequency doubling because it has a higher frequency-doubling coefficient.