GROWTH OF YB³⁺ DOPED LiNBO₃ CRYSTALS USING LASER HEATED PEDESTAL GROWTH METHOD

Abstract

The growth of LN single crystals free from defects greatly doped with rare earth elements (RE³⁺) and having a high optical quality is still an unresolved problem. Always, crystals of the niobate lithium contain a deficiency in lithium causing the appearance of intrinsic defects and thus a doping is required for the homogeneity. Our work was aimed to study the growth of Lithium niobate and their structural characterization, it focusses on congruent to stoichiometric Yb: LiNbO₃ (LN) crystals. These crystals were synthesized with different doping concentrations of Yb3+ (1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 5.0 mol%) by the LHPG method which is faster, less expensive and clean, Three analysis techniques were used: Structural characterization made up 5.0 mol% by X-ray diffraction, Optical Microscopy and micro-Raman spectroscopy showed that the obtained material is single crystal, good optical quality and homogeneous. As we lnow, the results obtained with doping up to 5% are encouraging. Our approach provides excellent spectroscopic properties of crystals, low self-quenching property and can be used to applications such as solid-state laser.