High resolution x-ray investigation of periodically poled lithium tantalate crystals with short periodicity

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that high resolution x-ray diffraction is an effective, nondestructive method for characterizing short-period periodically poled lithium tantalate crystals, providing detailed structural information crucial for nonlinear optical applications.

Contribution

The study introduces high resolution x-ray diffraction as a novel, nondestructive technique for analyzing short-period domain structures in lithium tantalate crystals.

Findings

High resolution x-ray diffraction accurately measures domain period.

The method reveals domain wall inclination and structure quality.

It enables nondestructive characterization of sub-2 μm structures.

Abstract

Domain engineering technology in lithium tantalate is a well studied approach for nonlinear optical applications. However, for several cases of interest, the realization of short period structures (< 2 \mu m) is required, which make their characterization difficult with standard techniques. In this work, we show that high resolution x-ray diffraction is a convenient approach for the characterization of such structures, allowing us to obtain in a nondestructive fashion information such as the average domain period, the domain wall inclination, and the overall structure quality.