Influence of growth temperature of KTiOAsO₄single crystals on their physicochemical parameters and formation of domain structures

A potassium titanyl arsenate (KTiOAsO4, KTA) crystal 50 × 80 × 60 mm in size has been grown by upgraded Czochralski method from flux (TGGS) with a decrease in temperature from 900 to 770 °C during pulling. It is shown that the spectroscopic properties of the parts of KTA crystals grown at 900 and 770 °C are close, whereas the electrical conductivity of the lowerature (770 °C) KTA part turned out to be an order of magnitude lower than that of the higherature part. Visualisation of the domain structure by second-harmonic generation microscopy revealed a more efficient domain intergrowth (throughout the sample) in the lowerature KTA, which is important for forming a regular domain structure (RDS) in a KTA-based nonlinear optical element. It is established that the quantum efficiency of parametric generation of light in the RDS formed in lowerature KTA is several times higher than in the case of higherature KTA. The results obtained are important for optimising RDS parameters.