Growth of KNbO3 thin films on MgO by pulsed laser deposition

Abstract

KNbO3 crystals have numerous uses in electro-optical, nonlinear optical, and photorefractive device applications. However, their widespread availability is somewhat limited due to their cost and growth difficulties. For applications requiring waveguide geometries, further problems exist, as KNbO3 is not particularly suited to general fabrication techniques such as diffusion or ion exchange. Ion beam implantation has produced optical waveguides,1 and liquid phase epitaxy techniques2 prove successful, but so far, the technique of Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) has not been applied to thin film KNbO3 growth. We report here the results of waveguide growth using this technique.3