MICRO- AND NANO-STRUCTURES IN SINGLE CRYSTALS OF LITHIUM NIOBATE CONTAINING LANTHANIDE ADMIXTURES

ABSTRACT

Micro-size domain structures in lithium niobate single crystals containing lanthanide (Gd, Tm, Sm, Lu) admixture, grown under stationary and non-stationary conditions are studied by efficient and flexible Thixomet® image analyser. Regular fractal-type domain structures observed along the three Y-axes of the hexagonal crystallographic set-up are assigned to pinning of the domain walls at defects created under conditions of imbalanced crystallization of the doped melt. Characteristic types of domains have been found analysing the configurations of domains on optical and atomic force microscopic images of surfaces of different crystallographic orientations.

Keywords:

• lithium niobate
• single crystals
• domain micro-structures

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The work was made with the support of grants of the Russian Foundation for Fundamental Research 06-03-32120, 07-03-12022, 08-03-00260.