Growth and fabrication of LiNbO/sub 3/ thin film by LPE and QPM-SHG devices

The authors describe the growth of LiNbO/sub 3/ thin films for optical applications. Liquid phase epitaxy (LPE) is a suitable technique because: a large number of dopants can be selected, it provides a thin film with high crystalline quality, and 3-inch size wafers with compositional and thickness uniformity can be achieved. Quasi-phase-matched (QPM) second-harmonic generation (SHG) devices are one of the most attractive applications of LiNbO/sub 3/ optical waveguides. Ferroelectric domain control and optical damage resistance are discussed and results from fabricated thin-film optical waveguides are presented.