Improvement on Thermal Stability of Nano-Domains in Lithium Niobate Thin Films

We present a simple and effective way to improve the thermal stability of nano-domains written with an atomic force microscope (AFM)-tip voltage in a lithium niobate film on insulator (LNOI). We show that nano-domains in LNOI (whether in the form of stripe domains or dot domains) degraded, or even d...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Yuejian Jiao, Zhen Shao, Sanbing Li, Xiaojie Wang, Fang Bo, Jingjun Xu, Guoquan Zhang
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2020-01-01
Series:Crystals
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4352/10/2/74
Description
Summary:We present a simple and effective way to improve the thermal stability of nano-domains written with an atomic force microscope (AFM)-tip voltage in a lithium niobate film on insulator (LNOI). We show that nano-domains in LNOI (whether in the form of stripe domains or dot domains) degraded, or even disappeared, after a post-poling thermal annealing treatment at a temperature on the order of &#8764;100 <inline-formula> <math display="inline"> <semantics> <msup> <mrow></mrow> <mo>∘</mo> </msup> </semantics> </math> </inline-formula>C. We experimentally confirmed that the thermal stability of nano-domains in LNOI is greatly improved if a pre-heat treatment is carried out for LNOI before the nano-domains are written. This thermal stability improvement of nano-domains is mainly attributed to the generation of a compensating space charge field parallel to the spontaneous polarization of written nano-domains during the pre-heat treatment process.
ISSN:2073-4352