In recent years borate-based crystals has attracted substantial interest among the research community. The overall importance of this family of materials is reflected in miscellaneous articles and several reviews that have been published over the years. Crystalline borate materials exhibit numerous interesting physical properties, which make them promising for further practical applications. Diversity of functional characteristics results from their high structural flexibility caused in the linkage of planar/non–planar BO₃ groups and BO₄ tetrahedra, which can occur as isolated or condensed structural units. This report is a brief review on crystal chemistry and structure features of anhydrous/high-temperature borates. Polymorphism of boron-oxygen radicals has been considered basing on cations’ nature and synthesis conditions. Analysis of the laws governing borates structures and general principles of their systematics was discussed. As a result, an alternative classification of anhydrous compounds has been considered. It is based on four orders of their subdivision: (1) by the variety of anion formers, (2) by the cation charge, (3) by the N = N_M:N_B, i.e., ratio of metal atoms number to the ratio of boron atoms number (N-factor) value indicating the borate structural type (if it is known), (4) by the cation type and size.

The luminescence properties of RAl₃(BO₃)₄ (RAB, with R = Pr, Eu, Tb, Dy, Tm, Yb) huntite crystals grown from K₂Mo₃O₁₀ flux were systematically characterized in order to investigate their excitation dynamics, with particular reference to the concentration quenching that in these systems is incomplete. To this purpose, selected excitation, emission, and decay profile measurements on diluted R:YAB crystals were carried out and compared with those of the concentrated compounds. The effects of the energy transfer processes and of the lattice defects, as well as the ion-lattice interactions, have been taken into consideration in order to account for the experimental results.

The reactivity of viscous melts has been analyzed as a function of the degree of anion polymerization. Precise techniques are proposed for detecting the phase relations and kinetics of high-temperature crystallization of new materials in four-to-six-component borate and tantalate systems. For rare earth polyfunctional borates RAl₃(BO₃)₄ (R = Y or lanthanides), efficient frequency conversion with parameters greatly exceeding the corresponding parameters for known media has been demonstrated for the first time. The conditions for fabrication of refractory optical single crystals having high thermal conductivity and other record characteristics (in comparison with the known diode-pumped lasers) for femtosecond integrated optics have been optimized. Bases of the laboratory technology of growth of such crystals are considered.