Abstract
Measurements on a variety of doped (magnesium and/or iron) and undoped lithium niobate crystals in the oxidized state demonstrate an Arrhenius dependence of dark conductivity on reciprocal temperature between 460 and 590 K. All of the crystals had roughly the same conductivity and activation energy (1.21 eV) over the temperature range, implying that all have about the same free-carrier concentration and mobility. The enhanced photoconductivity of magnesium-doped lithium niobate is attributed to a greatly reduced trapping cross section of Fe3+ for electrons, the smaller cross section being due to a changed substitutional site for Fe3+. The Fe3+ trapping cross section is calculated from photoconductivity data to be of order 10-18 m2 in undoped lithium niobate. This implies a photoelectron lifetime of order 6x10-11 s in a relatively pure (2-ppm Fe) oxidized crystal.
Recommended Citation
R. Gerson et al., "Photoconductivity Parameters In Lithium Niobate," Journal of Applied Physics, vol. 60, no. 10, pp. 3553 - 3557, American Institute of Physics, Dec 1986.
The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/10.1063/1.337611
Department(s)
Physics
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
0021-8979
Document Type
Article - Journal
Document Version
Final Version
File Type
text
Language(s)
English
Rights
© 2023 American Institute of Physics, All rights reserved.
Publication Date
01 Dec 1986
