Defect engineering and micromachining of Lithium Niobate by ion implantation

A complete set of semi-empirical equations has been determined to engineer the damage formation in Lithium Niobate (LN) by irradiation with any ion atomic number and energy in the range 0.1–1.0 MeV/amu. Both nuclear and electronic process were taken into account and in particular the complex regime of sub-threshold electronic damage was quantitatively approached. The chemical etching of the processed material in 50 wt% HF at room temperature has been studied and the dependence of the etching rate on the damage concentration has been quantified. Finally, some test processes for surface micromachining of LN were first planned by using the above equations and then experimentally demonstrated.