Abstract

Whispering-gallery resonators made of undoped and MgO-doped congruently grown lithium niobate are used to study electro-optic refractive index changes. Hereby, we focus on the volume photovoltaic and the pyroelectric effect, both providing an electric field driving the electro-optic effect. Our findings indicate that the light-induced photorefractive effect, combining the photovoltaic and electro-optic effect, is present only in the non-MgO-doped lithium niobate for exposure with light having wavelengths of up to 850 nm. This leads to strong resonance frequency shifts of the whispering-gallery modes. No photorefractive effect was observed in the MgO-doped material. One has to be aware that surface charges induced by the pyroelectric effect result in a similar phenomenon and are present in both materials.

© 2016 Optical Society of America

Strong forward-backward asymmetry of stimulated Raman scattering in lithium-niobate-based whispering gallery resonators

M. Leidinger, B. Sturman, K. Buse, and I. Breunig
Opt. Lett. 41(12) 2823-2826 (2016)

Pyroelectrically induced photorefractive damage in magnesium-doped lithium niobate crystals

Judith R. Schwesyg, Matthias Falk, Chris R. Phillips, Dieter H. Jundt, Karsten Buse, and Martin M. Fejer
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 28(8) 1973-1987 (2011)

Ultrahigh Q whispering gallery mode electro-optic resonators on a silicon photonic chip

Mohammad Soltani, Vladimir Ilchenko, Andrey Matsko, Anatoliy Savchenkov, John Schlafer, Colm Ryan, and Lute Maleki
Opt. Lett. 41(18) 4375-4378 (2016)

Ultra-sensitive lithium niobate thermometer based on a dual-resonant whispering-gallery-mode cavity

Wenle Weng, Philip S. Light, and Andre N. Luiten
Opt. Lett. 43(7) 1415-1418 (2018)

Self-frequency doubling in a laser-active whispering-gallery resonator

Simon J. Herr, Yannick Folwill, Karsten Buse, and Ingo Breunig
Opt. Lett. 42(13) 2627-2630 (2017)