Effect of $V_20_5$ on the surface and structural characteristics of potassium lithium niobate

It has been suggested [1] that materials with interesting and useful bulk non-linear optical properties might result by substituting vanadium, the lightest element in group V of the periodic table, for Nb or Ta atoms along with Li and three oxygens. It is with this motivation that we have been making attempts to grow single crystals of $LiNbO_3$ doped with various concentrations of $V_20_5$. Unfortunately, the results obtained on the ceramic samples of this material have not been very encouraging, owing to their hygroscopic nature. However, our attempts to prepare both ceramic and single-crystalline samples of potassium lithium niobate $(K_3Li_2Nb_5O_{15}; KLN)$ doped with $V_20_5$ were successful. In this letter we report the preliminary results concerning our studies on the effect of $V_20_5$ doping on the structural as well as topographic features of both ceramic and singlecrystalline samples of KLN