Application of Thermal Analysis to Study the Crystal Growth, Defect Structure and Thermal Expansion of LiNbO sub 3

A model is described which links the cation vacancy concentration in LiNbO3 to the amount of TiO2 added and the degree of Li2O deficiency. It is shown that there is a linear relationship between the cation vacancy content and the Curie temperature, T, for the single phase region regardless of the source of these vacancies. The Tc of the two phased material is used to establish the solubility limits of TiO2 in both the stoichiometric and congruent LiNbO3 compositions is shown to decrease with increasing TiO2 content while the C-axis remains unchanged.