Ferroelectric domain walls are interfaces between areas of a material that exhibits different directions of spontaneous polarization. The properties of domain walls can be very different from those of the undisturbed material. Metallic-like conductivity of charged domain walls (CDWs) in nominally insulating ferroelectrics was predicted in 1973 and detected recently. This important effect is still in its infancy: The electric currents are still smaller than expected, the access to the conductivity at CDWs is hampered by contact barriers, and stability is low because of sophisticated domain structures or proximity of the Curie point. Here, we report on large, accessible, and stable conductivity at CDWs in lithium niobate (LN) crystals – a vital material for photonics. Our results mark a breakthrough: Increase of conductivity at CDWs by more than 13 orders of magnitude compared to that of the bulk, access to the effect via ohmic and diode-like contacts, and high stability for temperatures T ≤ 70 °C are demonstrated. A promising and now realistic prospect is to combine CDW functionalities with linear and nonlinear optical phenomena. Our findings allow new generations of adaptive-optical elements, of electrically controlled integrated-optical chips for quantum photonics, and of advanced LN-semiconductor hybrid optoelectronic devices.

Chip-integrated whispering-gallery resonators enable compact and wavelength-agile nonlinear optical frequency synthesizers. So far, the most flexible phase-matching technique, i.e. quasi phase matching, has not been applied in this configuration. The reason is the lack of suitable thin films with alternating crystal structure on a low-refractive-index substrate. Here, we demonstrate an innovative method of realizing thin film substrates suitable for quasi phase matching by field-assisted domain engineering of lithium niobate, and subsequent direct bonding and polishing. We are able to fabricate high-Q on-chip WGRs with these substrates by using standard semiconductor manufacturing techniques. The Q-factors of the resonators are up to one million, which allows us to demonstrate quasi-phase-matched second-harmonic generation in on-chip WGRs for the first time. The normalized conversion efficiency is 9 × 10 −4 mW −1 . This method can also be transferred to other material systems. * These authors contributed equally to this work.

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We demonstrate a whispering gallery optical parametric oscillator pumped at 488 nm wavelength. This millimeter-sized device has a pump threshold of 160 μW. The signal field is tunable between 707 and 865 nm wavelength and the idler field between 1120 and 1575 nm through temperature variation. Although the conversion efficiency is fundamentally limited to several percent because of absorption loss for the pump wave, the results provide evidence that such oscillators will be able to cover finally the entire visible range.

The dielectric function (DF) of hexagonal AlN on Si (111) is determined in the range between 1 and 9.8 eV by spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE). Due to its large negative crytal-field splitting wurtzite AlN features large dichroism. Showing that SE is sensitive to both components of the DF around the absorption edge, a uniaxial model is applied which yields transition energies for the free excitonic state. The in-plane tensile stress leads to a red-shift of these transitions and to an enlarged splitting. The experimental data are compared to the results of band-structure calculations demonstrating excellent overall agreement. In addition, two high-energy critical points in the ordinary DF were determined at energies of about 7.75 and 8.85 eV.