Investigation of domain kinetics in congruent lithium niobate modified by proton exchange

ABSTRACT

The domain structure evolution has been studied in congruent lithium niobate crystals with surface layers modified by three different proton exchange techniques. The significant decrease of the nucleation threshold field and qualitative change of domain rays nucleation and growth have been revealed. The formation of a broad domain boundary and dendrite domain structure as a result of nanodomains merging in front of the moving rays has been demonstrated. The obtained effects have been attributed to features of the domain kinetics induced by built-in electric field and retardation of the bulk screening of depolarization field.

KEYWORDS:

• Waveguide
• nonlinear optics
• piezoresponse force microscopy
• confocal Raman microscopy

Acknowledgments

The equipment of the Ural Center for Shared Use “Modern Nanotechnology” UrFU has been used.

Funding

The research was made possible in part by Ministry of Education and Science of Russian Federation (UID RFMEFI59414X0011 and Project 2457), by RFBR (Grants 15-32-21102-mol_a_ved, 13-02-01391_a, 14-02-01160a), by Government of the Russian Federation (Act 211, Agreement 02.A03.21.0006) and by Government of France for the joint supervision of doctorate thesis.