Guides d’ondes dans un cristal de niobate de lithium périodiquement polarisé : fabrication et étude par des techniques de microscopie à sonde locale

摘要

The investigation of influence of the soft proton exchange (SPE) optical waveguide (WG) creation onperiodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) has been done. It has been shown that the WG fabricationprocess can induce the formation of needle like nanodomains, which can be responsible for thedegradation of the nonlinear response of the WG created in PPLN crystals. The domain structure (DS)evolution has been studied in congruent lithium niobate (LN) crystals with surface layers modified bythree different proton exchange techniques. The significant decrease of the nucleation threshold fieldand qualitative change of domain rays nucleation and growth have been revealed. The formation of abroad domain boundary and dendrite domain structure as a result of nanodomains merging in front ofthe moving rays has been demonstrated. The formation of DS in LN with SPE by irradiation of coveredby electron resist polar surface of LN has been investigated. Formation of domains with arbitrary shapesas a result of discrete switching has been revealed. Finally, it has been demonstrated that electron beamirradiation of lithium niobate crystals with surface resist layer can produce high quality periodical domainpatterns after channel waveguide fabrication. Nonlinear characterizations show that the conversionefficiencies and the phase matching spectra conform to theoretical predictions, indicating that thiscombination presents a great interest for device fabrication. Second harmonic generation withnormalized nonlinear conversion efficiency up to 48%/(W cm2) has been achieved in such waveguides