Lithium tantalate single crystal for pyroelectricity-based laser energy-meter: growth, application and phase transition study

Single crystals of lithium tantalate have been grown. Dielectric-spectroscopy study reveals phase transition in congruent lithium tantalate (CLT) single crystal is diffusive and frequency dependent in contrast to that in near stoichiometric lithium tantalate where it is sharper. The ac conductivity measurements show that the conductivity is lower for 0.5Mg-SLT as compared to 1.0Mg-SLT. This is explained in terms of a Li-vacancy model. Calculation of activation energy from the lnσ vs. 1000/T plot reveals that hopping of Li+ ions becomes difficult for 0.5 Mg-SLT. The pyroelectric response of CLT for pulsed Nd:YAG laser output has been tested. (author)