In this research, formation of gaseous cavity defect in 1 at%Nd:YAG single crystal grown by the Czochralski technique has been studied. Growth atmosphere pressure and crystal rotation rate were optimized in order to prevent the defect formation. The microstructure of the defect was characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and wavelength dispersive spectroscopy (WDS) analyses. The stresses induced by the gaseous cavity were also investigated by parallel plane polariscope. The results show that the growth atmosphere pressure has a more significant influence on defect formation compared to the crystal rotation rate. In addition, decreasing the growth atmosphere pressure leads to growth of the crystals with no gaseous cavity defect. The results also show that Nd concentration varies around the defect making these areas useless for solid-state lasers application. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.