Photorefractive properties of MnO-doped near stoichiometric LiNbO3 crystals Original Research Article

In this paper, photorefractive properties of MnO-doped near stoichiometric LiNbO3 (SLN) were studied. The SLN crystals doped with different concentration of Mn ions have been grown by the top-seeded-solution-growth method by adding K2O flux to Li2O–Nb2O5 melt. The crystal structures were analyzed by the UV–vis spectra and IR spectra. The photorefractive properties of SLN were experimentally studied by using two-beam coupling. The results of the two-wave coupling experiments showed that, with a He–Ne laser of 632.8 nm wavelength, the MnO-doped SLN crystals had long writing time and long erasure time constants, and the dynamic range (M/#), sensitivity (S), and diffraction efficiency were dependent on the doping concentration.