Ferroelectric lithium niobate. 1. Growth, domain structure, dislocations and etching

Lithium niobate (LiNbO3) is a material of considerable interest in view of its unusual ferroelectric, optical, acoustic and piezoelectric properties. The growth of large single crystals by the Czochralski and Bridgman-Stockbarger techniques is described. Angles between crystallographic planes and a stereographic projection are given. The crystals show the presence of ferroelectric domains, the polar axis being the c-axis (hexagonal setting). Polishing, etching, microscopic, X-ray topographic and other techniques were used to examine the domains, dislocations and other imperfections in some detail. The preparation of single domain material and poling experiments will be discussed in paper 2 of this series.