Surface Ablation of Congruent and Mg-Doped Lithium Niobate by Femtosecond Laser

Lithium niobate is praised as silicon in nonlinear optics for its wide usage both in fundamental science and applications in optics. But its photorefractive effect hinders it from more extensive application in optics. The deadlock has been broken by doping some metallic elements such as magnesium into the congruent lithium niobate crystal for its high damage resistance. The single-shot and multi-shot surface ablation experiments by femotosecond laser with the wavelength of 800 nm and the duration of 80 fs were conducted in the same condition and the ablation threshold fluence was gained for congruent lithium niobate crystal and 6 mol % Mg-doped lithium niobate crystal. The band gap widening after doping is responsible for the discrepancy of the ablation thresholds between the two samples. The laser threshold fluence dependence of laser-shot number demonstrates the difference of the accumulation effect. The large reduction of trapping cross section for electrons after heavy doping of magnesium is focused more to interpret this distinction.