ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Phys.
Sec. Optics and Photonics
This article is part of the Research TopicAdvances in Light Emission and Photonic DevicesView all articles
Improvement of the Photorefractive Response in Bismuth and Magnesium Co-doped Lithium Niobate Crystals via Oxygen-Vacancy Modulation through Controlled Redox Annealing
Provisionally accepted
- 1Jiangsu University of Science and Technology, Zhenjiang, China
- 2Shijiazhuang Tiedao University, Shijiazhuang, China
- 3Nankai University, Tianjin, China
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In this study, bismuth (Bi) and magnesium (Mg) co-doped lithium niobate crystals (LN:Bi,Mg6.0) with a rapid photorefractive (PR) response were subjected to annealing treatments in oxygen and various argon atmospheres to modulate their oxidation-reduction states. The PR properties of LN:Bi,Mg6.0 crystals with different redox states, including saturation diffraction efficiency, response time, and sensitivity, were systematically characterized at laser wavelengths of 532 nm, 488 nm, and 442 nm. The results demonstrate that reduction treatment effectively shortens the response time and enhances the PR sensitivity of LN:Bi,Mg6.0 crystals. In particular, the crystal reduced in Ar atmosphere for 24 h exhibited a response time of 5.4 ms at 442 nm, representing a 58% reduction compared to the as-grown crystal. O 1s X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) revealed that changes in the redox state directly affect the concentration of oxygen vacancies (VO) in the crystal, thereby influencing its PR performance. As the VO increases, the PR response time initially decreases and then increases. In addition, based on the results of ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) absorption spectra and XPS, the defect structures of LN:Bi,Mg6.0 crystal with varying redox states were discussed.
Keywords: LiNbO3 crystal, Photorefraction, Rapid response, Redox Annealing, Oxygen-vacancy
Received: 21 Aug 2025; Accepted: 19 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wang, Wang, Zhang, Hu, Zheng, Liu and Kong. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Youyou Hu, yyhu@just.edu.cn
Dahuai Zheng, dhzheng@nankai.edu.cn
Yongfa Kong, kongyf@nankai.edu.cn
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