Abstract

When lithium niobate is grown with ~4 mol.% magnesium oxide doping, it exhibits greatly reduced optical-damage effects.¹ Previous room-temperature photorefractive and photovoltaic studies,^2,3 as well as the thermal fixing studies³, of LiNbO₃:MgO have also shown it to offer many favorable properties for optical information processing and storage. However, to date a detailed analysis of its photorefractive properties as a function of temperature has not been presented. In this paper, we investigate the temperature-dependent photorefractive properties of 4-mol.% MgO-doped LiNbO₃ over the range of 30 °C to 200 °C. From the photorefractive time evolution of the recording and erasing processes at various temperatures (obtained by monitoring the diffraction efficiency of a nondestructive read beam), we determine the time constants of the various charge species as a function of temperature. The unique temperature-dependent properties were observed and analyzed by using the electron–hole model.⁴

© 1995 Optical Society of America