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Demonstration of Er3+ diffusivity and solubility increases in off-congruent, Li-deficient LiNbO3 crystal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2011

De-Long Zhang*
Affiliation:
Department of Opto-electronics and Information Engineering, School of Precision Instruments and Opto-electronics Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, People’s Republic of China; and Key Laboratory of Optoelectronics Information Technology, Tianjin University, Ministry of Education, Tianjin 300072,China
Bei Chen
Affiliation:
Department of Opto-electronics and Information Engineering, School of Precision Instruments and Opto-electronics Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, People’s Republic of China; and Key Laboratory of Optoelectronics Information Technology, Tianjin University, Ministry of Education, Tianjin 300072,China
Ping-Rang Hua
Affiliation:
Department of Opto-electronics and Information Engineering, School of Precision Instruments and Opto-electronics Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, People’s Republic of China; and Key Laboratory of Optoelectronics Information Technology, Tianjin University, Ministry of Education, Tianjin 300072,China
Dao-Yin Yu
Affiliation:
Department of Opto-electronics and Information Engineering, School of Precision Instruments and Opto-electronics Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, People’s Republic of China; and Key Laboratory of Optoelectronics Information Technology, Tianjin University, Ministry of Education, Tianjin 300072,China
Edwin Yue-Bun Pun
Affiliation:
Department of Electronic Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon,Hong Kong, People’s Republic of China
*
a)Address all correspondence to this author. e-mail: dlzhang@tju.edu.cn
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Abstract

We demonstrate Er3+ diffusivity and solubility increases in off-congruent, Li-deficient LiNbO3 crystal. Li-poor vapor transport equilibration was used to reduce Li2O content in initial congruent crystals. Local Er3+ in-diffusion was then performed in a wet O2 atmosphere. Before and after the Er3+ diffusion procedure, surface Li2O content was evaluated from measured birefringence. The results show that the Er3+ diffusion procedure resulted in 0.3–0.5 mol% Li2O content loss at crystal surface. Secondary ion mass spectrometry was used to measure the Er3+ depth profiles, from which the diffusivity and solubility are determined. It is shown that the Er3+ diffusivity is nearly doubled and the solubility increases at least 0.6 mol% as the Li2O content decreases by 1.0 mol%. From the known Li2O content reduction, the solubility increase is also predicted and the results show that the predicted data are considerably smaller than the experimental results, suggesting that the Er3+ ions occupy also the Nb5+ site, besides the Li+ site.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2011

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References

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