“…Borates are always attracting a great interest among functional materials because of their rich varieties in crystal structure, large band gap, low synthesis temperature, and environmental benignity (Heller, 1986; Xue et al ., 2000; Gravereau et al ., 2002; Yang and Dolg, 2006; Zhao et al ., 2012; Lou et al ., 2015a, 2015b). There are lots of borates discovered with outstanding chemical and physical properties, such as, BBO ( β -BaB 2 O 4 ), LBO (LiB 3 O 5 ) (Kellner et al ., 1997), and CBO (CsB 3 O 5 ) (Wu et al ., 1993) for second-harmonic generation or Li 6 GdB 3 O 9 , Ca 3 Y(GaO) 3 (BO 3 ) 4 , KSr 4 B 3 O 9 , YCa 4 O(BO 3 ) 3 , LiLa 2 BO 5 , and GdB 5 O 9 for promising host of phosphor (Jubera et al ., 2003; Huang and Chen, 2011; Haque et al ., 2012; Wu et al ., 2012; Ingle et al ., 2014; Sun et al ., 2015), and the M 3 BO 5 (M = Co, Fe) ludwigite family as magnetic materials (Bordet and Suard, 2009; Norrestam et al ., 1989).…”