Noncritical phase matching and photorefractive damage in Sc2O3:LiNbO3

Abstract

The noncritical phase-matching temperature, Tpm, of Sc2O3-doped LiNbO3 was measured as a function of Sc2O3 concentration (0.0, 0.5, 1.0, and 1.5 mol % Sc2O3). Increasing the Sc2O3 concentration increased the phase-matching temperature, but to a lesser extent than reported in MgO:LiNbO3. The maximum phase-matching temperature was 46.5 °C in the 1.0 mol % Sc2O3:LiNbO3 crystal with an estimated temperature bandwidth of 1° cm. Photorefractive damage, determined by distortion in the transmitted beam, decreased with increasing Sc concentration, reaching a damage level comparable to that observed in 5.0 mol % MgO:LiNbO3 crystal in the 1.5 mol % Sc2O3:LiNbO3 crystal.

Growth and spectroscopic characterization of Zr:Fe:LiNbO3 crystals with various Li/Nb ratios

“…Its excellent electro-optical and nonlinear properties make it useful for optical switches, optical modulators, frequency doubling, and parametric oscillators [1][2][3]. Appropriately doped Fe:LiNbO 3 with high diffractive efficiency and high sensitivity has become the most promising candidate for digital data holographic storage applications [4,5].…”

Spectroscopic characteristics of 1.54μm emission in Er/Yb:LiNbO3 crystals tridoped with In3+ ions

“…Advances in suppressing the optical damage effect have involved contributions from the optical damage resistant ions such as Mg 2+ , Zn 2+ , In 3+ , Sc 3+ and Hf 4+ [12][13][14][15], which can improve the optical resistance of LiNbO 3 crystal by two orders of magnitude above their threshold concentration. The threshold concentrations are approximately 5.5 mol% for MgO [16], 7 mol% for ZnO [17] and 4 mol% for HfO 2 [18] in the congruent melt, which increase the difficulty in growing high quality crystals and further in obtaining waveguide-structure samples.…”

In doping effect on optical properties in Zn:In:Fe:LiNbO3 crystals

“…LiNbO 3 crystals are extensively researched because of their excellent electro-optic, acousto-optic, piezoelectric and nonlinear properties [1][2][3]. But their applications in holographic memory devices are severely limited because of lower optical damage resistance [4,5].…”