Excellent nonlinear optical materials, lithium triborate (LiB3O5, LBO) crystals are exceptional due to their wide transparency, high nonlinear coupling, high damage threshold, and favorable chemical and mechanical properties. High-power second harmonic production at near-infrared wavelengths and broadly tuned optical parametric oscillators in the visible and near-infrared are two of the most widely used applications.
Alfa Chemistry has years of experience customizing nonlinear crystals, and we will walk our customers through the online ordering process for LBO nonlinear crystals with care and patience. Since we have been creating LBOs for a long time, we have a ton of experience. Our high-quality LBO crystals can be used for a variety of application studies because they are generated using an improved flux technique.
Advantages of LBO Crystals
Alfa Chemistry's custom LBO is an excellent nonlinear crystal with a wide transmission range (160 nm to 2600 nm), wide acceptance angle, small walk-off angle, and the highest damage threshold (18.9 GW/cm2 for a 1.3 ns Laser at 1053 nm) among ordinary nonlinear crystals. In addition, it has high optical uniformity (δn ≈ 10-6/cm), a large effective nonlinear coefficient, and good chemical and mechanical properties.
Fig 1. The orientation of nonlinear LBO crystal for UBB phase-matching bandwidth, type I (oo → e) parametric interaction. (Dabu R, et al. 2019)
The LBO provides room temperature non-critical phase matching (NCPM) for Type II SHGs between 0.8~1.1 μm and temperature-controlled NCPM for Type I SHGs between 1.0 and 1.3 μm. Additionally, it has a sizable angular acceptance bandwidth, which lowers the pump laser's need for high-quality beams.
Properties of LBO Crystals
| Physical Properties | |
|---|---|
| Crystal Structure | Orthorhombic, space group Pna21 |
| Lattice Parameter | a=8.4473Å, b=7.3788Å, c=5.1395Å, Z=2 |
| Density | 2.47 g/cm3 |
| Melting Point | ~ 834 ℃ |
| Mohs Hardness | 6 |
| Thermal Conductivity | 3.5 W/m/K |
| Thermal Expansion Coefficients | αx=10.8x10-5/K, αy=-8.8x10-5/K,αz=3.4x10-5/K |
| Refractive Indices | nX = 1.5656; nY = 1.5905; nZ = 1.6055 @1064 nm |
| Optical and Nonlinear Properties | |
| Transparency Range | 160 ~ 2600 nm |
| Absorption Coefficients | <0.1%/cm at 1064 nm; <0.3%/cm at 532 nm |
| Therm-optic Coefficient | dnx/dT=-9.3X10-6/℃; dny/dT=-13.6X10-6/℃; dnz/dT=(-6.3-2.1λ)X10-6/℃ |
| NLO Coefficients | deff(I)=d32cosΦ (Type I in XY plane) deff(I)=d31cos2θ+d32sin2θ (Type I in XZ plane) deff(II)=d31cosθ (Type II in YZ plane) deff(II)=d31cos2θ+d32sin2θ (Type II in XZ plane) |
| Sellmeier Equations | nx2=2.454140+0.011249/(λ2-0.011350)-0.014591λ2-6.60×10-5λ4 ny2=2.539070+0.012711/(λ2-0.012523)-0.018540λ2+2.00×10-4λ4 nz2=2.586179+0.013099/(λ2-0.011893)-0.017968λ2-2.26×10-4λ4 |
| Alfa Chemistry offers LBO specification | |
| Dimension | Upon customer request |
| Dimension Tolerance | Dimension+0/-0.1 mm, L±0.1mm |
| Cutting Angle Tolerance | △θ≤±0.25°,△φ≤±0.25° |
| Flatness | λ/10 @ 632.8nm |
| Surface Quality | 10/5 per MIL-O-13830A |
| Clear Aperture | > 90% |
| Damage Threshold | 750MW/cm2 at 1064nm, TEM00, 10ns, 10Hz |
| Coating | AR/PR coating upon customer's request |
| Quality Warranty Period | One year under proper use |
Why Choose Alfa Chemistry?
Alfa Chemistry can customize LBO crystals to suit client needs. We have extensive knowledge of crystal formation. Customers from all around the world have given their approval to our high-quality LBO bespoke crystals. To develop LBO crystals, we employ flux growth techniques. To ensure that each crystal will meet the requirements of the customer and function effectively in the laser system, high quality starting materials are used to grow the crystals, and strict quality control is performed on absorption, scattering loss, volume loss, wavefront distortion, inclusions, and all other required processing specifications of our LBO's.
If you need technical advice, please contact our technical team to learn more about our high-quality services.
Reference
- Dabu R, et al. (2019). "Femtosecond Laser Pulses Amplification in Crystals." Crystals. 9(7): 347.