Growth and holographic data storage properties of near-stoichiometric LiTaO3 crystals doped with Mn

A series of Mn-doped near-stoichiometric LiTaO3 crystals were grown from a Li-rich (Li/Nb = 1.38, atomic ratio) and varying level of Mn-doping melt using a Cz furnace equipped with a radio frequency generator. The etching experiment reveals that as-grown polarized Mn:SLN has single ferroelectric domain structures under optical microscope. By two-beam coupling experiment, we measured and systematically analyzed the photorefractive properties such as the dynamic range, the sensitivity and the loss of signal-to-noise-ratio coefficient. Based on Mn (0.05 wt%):SLN crystal, a big capacity storage of 100 holograms in a coherent volume of 0.085 cm3 have been fulfilled successfully and the storage density arrived 0.93 Gbits cm−3.