Abstract
We have examined the effects of annealing in air at 350 to 550°C on proton-exchanged waveguides in lithium niobate crystals. By making a complex analysis of the processes that take place during annealing which included structural, waveguiding-optical, IR-spectroscopical and thermogravimetric measurements, we were able to find the conditions under which the LiNb 3O 8 phase is formed in H:LiNbO 3 waveguides. A noticeable increase of LiNb 3O 8 begins at the moment the refractive index increment at the boundary of the initial proton-exchanged waveguide reaches the value Δ n e=0.037. With further annealing, when the Δ n e on the surface of the plate also becomes equal to 0.037, there begins the evaporation of Li 2O and intensive formation of LiNb 3O 8. The results presented enable one to understand why under certain conditions of annealing the optical losses in H:LiNbO 3 waveguides become greater, and to optimize the conditions of such annealing to produce high-quality waveguides.
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