Electrooptic ferroelectric Na/sub 0.5/K/sub 0.5/NbO/sub 3/ films

We report on waveguiding and electrooptic properties of epitaxial Na/sub 0.5/K/sub 0.5/NbO/sub 3/ films grown by radio-frequency magnetron sputtering on Al/sub 2/O/sub 3/(11_02) single crystal substrates. High optical waveguiding performance has been demonstrated in infrared and visible light. The in-plane electrooptic effect has been recorded in transmission using a transverse geometry. At dc fields, the effective linear electrooptic coefficient was determined to 28 pm/V, which is promising for modulator applications.