Abstract

Temperature-induced backswitching in periodically poled domains in a 1.0 mol% MgO-doped near-stoichiometric LiTaO₃ (SLT) QPM device with a QPM period of 6.1 µm used for the second harmonic generation of 488 nm wavelength light was investigated by using scanning force microscopy. It was revealed that backswitching consistently occurred due to heat treatments, and the degree of backswitching was dependent on the temperature history. On the basis of systematically analyzing the backswitching phenomena, we propose two effective methods (edge-cutting method and ion implantation method) for suppressing backswitching in QPM devices.

© 2007 Optical Society of America