Investigation of Electro-Elastic Properties for LN Single Crystals at Low Temperature

Abstract

Lithium niobate crystals (LiNbO3, LN) are multifunctional crystal materials with many outstanding properties. In this work, the electro-elastic properties of LN single crystals were explored at temperatures from −150 °C to 150 °C. The temperature dependences of dielectric permittivities, elastic compliances, electromechanical coupling factors and piezoelectric coefficients were determined using the impedance method. The LN crystals possessed large dielectric permittivities, the ε11T/ε0 and ε33T/ε0 were 83.2 and 29.4 at room temperature, respectively. The elastic compliances s11, s13, s33 and s44 presented a positive increase as the temperature increased, and the variations were 5.0%, 8.2%, 4.6% and 5.4%, respectively, showing a good temperature stability. Moreover, the temperature dependence of the electromechanical coupling factors and piezoelectric coefficients for different vibration modes were studied with a temperature range from −150 °C to 150 °C, where the thickness shear vibration mode d15 presented a large piezoelectric response and minimal temperature variation.