Periodically-Poled Lithium Niobate

PPLN products are manufactured from Crystal Technology's integrated optics sub-strates and meet stringent criteria for uniformity and crystalline quality. By choosing an appropriate poling period, a wide range of nonlinear optical interactions can be phase-matched. PPLN offers high gain, non-critical phase-matching with all interacting beams polarized along the Z-axis. Our growth method is well developed and geared to high volume production thus lowering manufacturing cost and allowing our crystals to be deployed into mass market application such as laser projection displays and other consumer applications. The purity of starting powders and the crystal growth parameters are tightly controlled to ensure consistent quality guaranteeing stable optical properties.

For laser interactions that include visible light in the blue or green spectral range, we recommend the use of MgO doped PPLN. The doping eliminates the photorefractive damage that can be observed in PPLN made from congruent crystals.

While the catalog pages list a few standard parts at various lengths with multiple periodicity gratings, it is often worthwhile designing a specific mask for a particular applicaiton utilizing quasi-phase-matching (QPM).

Applications

• High resolution mid IR spectroscopy
• OPO and DFG for laser science experiments
• Missile counter-measure laser systems
• SHG for red, green and blue generation from IR sources