Temperature variation of the refractive index of potassium niobate

Abstract

Use was made of a novel Fabry–Pérot interferometer technique to determine the variation of refractive index with temperature (∂n/∂T) of a potassium niobate crystal with a GaAlAs diode laser. The transverse intensity distributions of the laser transmitted through the crystal were found to be temperature dependent, and the ∂n/∂T values along crystallographic b and c axes were determined to be −4.5×10−5 and 6.1×10−5 °C−1, respectively. The temperature changes required for tangential tuning from transverse mode TEMqmn to TEMqm+1n and sagittal tuning from TEMqmn to TEMqmn+1 were found to be 0.29 and 1.27 °C, respectively, when the laser was polarized along the b axis. When the laser polarization was along the c axis, the tangential and sagittal tunings were found to be 0.10 and 0.54 °C, respectively. These differences between the tangential and sagittal directions indicated that the monolithic ring resonator used was indeed asymmetric.