Electro-optic and dielectric properties of Zirconium-doped congruent lithium-niobate crystals

Mustapha Abarkan (1) , Michel Aillerie (2) , Ninel Kokanyan (2) , Clément Teyssandier (2) , Edvard Kokanyan (3)

1 LIMAO - Laboratoire d'Informatique, Mathématique, Automatique et Optoelectronique
2 LMOPS - Laboratoire Matériaux Optiques, Photonique et Systèmes
3 IPR NAS RA - Institute for Physical Research of National Academy of Sciences of Armenia

Measurements of electro-optic and dielectric properties in Zirconium (Zr)-doped lithium niobate (LN:Zr) crystals are performed as functions of the dopant concentration in the range 0.0-2.5 mol%. The clamped and unclamped electro-optic coefficients r 222 of Zr-doped LN and the corresponding dielectric permittivity as well, have been experimentally determined and compared with the results obtained in undoped congruent LN crystals. We show that the electro-optic and dielectric properties present a kink around 2 mol% of zirconium which seems to be the " threshold " concentration required to strongly reduce the photorefractive effect. All reported results confirm that the LN:Zr is a very promising candidate for several non linear devices.

Mots clés: Interferometry; Phase modulation; Electro-optical materials; Lithium niobate

Domaines: Science des matériaux [cond-mat.mtrl-sci]; Optique [physics.optics]

Mustapha Abarkan, Michel Aillerie, Ninel Kokanyan, Clément Teyssandier, Edvard Kokanyan. Electro-optic and dielectric properties of Zirconium-doped congruent lithium-niobate crystals. Optical Materials Express, 2014, 4 (1), pp.179-189. ⟨10.1364/OME.4.000179⟩. ⟨hal-01467230⟩