(012) Textured LiNbO3 waveguiding films grown on SiO2 by pulsed laser deposition technique

LiNbO3 optical waveguiding films are prepared on (001)-oriented alpha-SiO2 substrates by a pulsed laser deposition technique. The films are characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and X-ray diffraction (XRD), which reveal that highly (012) textured LiNbO3 films with small surface roughness and good compositional consistency with bulk LiNbO3 are achieved. The optical waveguiding properties are evaluated by the optical prism coupling method, which indicates that the m-lines of transverse magnetic (TM) and transverse electric (TE) multimodes are sharp and clear. The optical propagation losses for TM mode and TE mode are of the order of 1.7 and 2.1 dB/cm, respectively.