The resistance against optical damage of near-stoichiometric LiNbO3:Mg crystals prepared by vapor transport equilibration

Abstract Several near-stoichiometric lithium niobate crystals with the doping concentration of Mg near the second threshold were prepared by vapor transport equilibrium technique. All these samples show no laser beam distortion under a light intensity of 26 MW/cm 2 , that is three orders of magnitude higher than that of 5 mol% Mg doped congruent LiNbO 3 . And the light-induced refractive index (Δ n ) in one of them is as small as 4.6 × 10 −7 , which is two orders of magnitude lower than that of congruent crystals.