Electric-field poling in Mg-doped LiNbO3

Abstract

We report on electric-field poling of MgO:LiNbO3 (MgLN) using patterned electrodes. Investigation of electric properties of MgLN reveals that polarization switching causes reversible resistance change and that this phenomenon can explain the physical mechanism of random domain growth. Based on these results, we propose a domain-control method in MgLN single crystals by suppressing resistance reduction during the poling process. Using this method, short periodic structures consisting of submicron domain geometries have been achieved in X-, Y-, and Z-cut MgLN crystals. High performances of these periodic domain-inverted structures are also demonstrated by evaluating their potentials as second-harmonic generation devices.