Optical Nonlinearities in LiIO3

Abstract

Clear, transparent (0.5–5.0 μ), solution-grown, single crystals of negative uniaxial LiIO3 show no optically induced damage and remain stable in the temperature range 20°–256°C. The crystals are of point group 6 and are optically active and pyroelectric. We have measured the linear electrooptic coefficients in the visible and the optical activity in the infrared. For λ1=1.0845 μ phase-matched second harmonic generation (PMSHG) occurred at θm=28.9° and this angle changed by less than 0.3° in the range 20–256°C. PMSHG was employed to determine the single domain quality of the crystals and to measure | d31(LiIO3)/d36(KDP) |=11. At 1.06 μ we have measured the coherence lengths and the ratio of the nonlinear coefficients | d33/d31 |=0.8.