Photoelectric effects of ultraviolet fast response and high sensitivity in LiNbO3 single crystal

Abstract

The photoelectric effects in LiNbO3 (LNO) single crystal have been systematically studied with the two kinds of LNO wafers of tilt of 10° and untilted at the ambient temperature. The ultrafast response photoelectric effect of 120 ps rise time was observed in 10° tilted LNO single crystal with a 266 nm laser pulse of 25 ps duration. The photocurrent responsivity of untilted LNO with an interdigitated electrode of 10 μm finger width and 10 μm interspacing is 17.1 mA/W under the irradiation of 300 nm wavelength UV light at 10 V bias. The noise current under sunlight is only 73 pA at 10 V bias. The experimental results suggest that the LNO single crystal is one of the promising materials for photodetectors working in UV region. © 2009 American Institute of Physics.