Optical behaviour of VTE treated near stoichiometric LiNbO3 crystals

Near stoichiometric LiNbO3 crystal wafers of thickness up to 2 mm were prepared by vapour transport equilibration technique (VTE) at various process temperatures. Crystals were characterised by measurement of the UV absorption edge, refractive index, second harmonic generation (SHG) efficiency, and conoscopy pattern analysis. The comparison of VTE treated crystals show that the blue shift in cut off wavelength occurred with the increasing process temperature (i.e. increasing Li/Nb ratio). The refractive indices were found decreasing with increasing process temperature of VTE samples. The SHG efficiency increases in the range of 1.98–2.3 times for the VTE processed samples with respected to congruent crystals. Conoscopy pattern reveals the optical homogeneity of the VTE treated crystal.