143 scalar and 49 tensor records, 7 dispersion models, 280 sources, 39 unverified claims held apart
Record
Scalar
property, symbol, variant (CLN, SLN, MgO-doped, LiTaO3 for comparison), value or range or text, stated uncertainty, unit as UCUM code with a QUDT URI where one exists, conditions (temperature, wavelength, frequency, mechanical and electrical boundary), frame
Tensor
independent components, Voigt matrix and convention, full Cartesian tensor generated by code, 3m symmetry form, frame with +z sign definition
Dispersion
formula, coefficients, validity window in wavelength and temperature, reference temperature, errata, check values reproduced at build time
Provenance
source id with DOI or URL, locator (table, page, equation), original measurement when read through a compilation, status, transcription date
instruments drawn as instruments, 3D where geometry explains it, render on demand
Color
monochrome; accent equals foreground
spectral colors computed from wavelength (CIE 1931 2° functions, Wyman-Sloan-Shirley 2013 fit); 1064 and 1550 nm in declared false color, always dashed; material colors for Au, Si, SiO2, LN
Badges
mono uppercase tags; border style gives the grade
diamond glyph and word; fill gives the grade
Motion
none
only what the reader operates plus the motifs below; off under prefers-reduced-motion
Common
sharp corners, dark default and light theme, no layout shift during interaction, ISO dates, SI units
Field guide to the motifs
8 motifs; motion ones only in VISUAL
Motif
Where
Physics
Photorefractive trace
VISUAL with motion allowed: the pointer leaves a faint 532 nm green trace that fades and is cleared 15 s after the pointer stops (display timing).
Light excites electrons from Fe2+ and other donor sites; the bulk photovoltaic current moves them along the c axis until they are trapped, and the space-charge field changes ne through the Pockels effect. The written index persists for the dielectric relaxation time εε0/σ: about 7 h to 29 days in the dark for ε33 = 28 and a dark conductivity of 10−14 to 10−16 S/m (range from Volk & Wöhlecke 2009, p. 60).
Green-induced infrared absorption
VISUAL: marks drawn in infrared false color within 40 px of the pointer dim to 35% and recover over 2.5 s.
532 nm light creates small polarons (electrons bound at NbLi antisites) whose absorption band lies in the near infrared, so a green beam raises the infrared loss of a frequency doubler; the absorption decays after the green light is removed.
Bias drift
Footer, VISUAL: the operating point of an MZM transfer curve drifts with a single time constant of 40 s over 90° (display values); a click re-locks it. TECH holds it at quadrature.
A DC bias on a thin-film LN modulator is screened by charge moving in the film, cladding and interfaces, so the phase set by a constant voltage relaxes over seconds to hours (EO response measured from 1 mHz to 1 MHz by Holzgrafe et al. 2024, doi:10.1364/OE.507536).
Poled rules
Masthead band and VISUAL section rules: alternating ±z domains at 2 px per µm with the first-order QPM period of the page: 6.82 µm for 1064 → 532 nm (landing), 18.99 µm for 1550 → 775 nm (Light, phase matching).
Reversing the ferroelectric domain every coherence length flips the sign of d33 and keeps the second harmonic growing: Λ = λ / (2 (ne(λ/2) − ne(λ))), computed live from the Zelmon 1997 congruent ne at 21 °C.
Li-vacancy texture
VISUAL background: a triangular dot lattice with 4.0% of the dots missing and 1.0% drawn as rings.
Congruent LN grows Li-poor, [Li]/[Nb] = 0.94 (Volk & Wöhlecke 2009, p. 9). In the Li-site vacancy model (Li1−5xNbxV4x)NbO3, (1 − 5x)/(1 + x) = 0.94 gives x = 0.0101: 4.04% of Li sites empty and 1.01% occupied by Nb antisites. Lattice spacing is decorative.
3m ornaments
VISUAL: a stereogram glyph before every heading (threefold axis, three mirror planes); cards cut with one 60° facet. No four-, five- or eightfold ornament appears.
LN belongs to point group 3m: one threefold rotation axis along c and three mirror planes containing it. Neumann's principle then fixes which tensor components vanish or are tied, e.g. four independent Pockels coefficients r13, r22, r33, r51.
Conoscope logo
Masthead logo and favicon: the computed conoscopic figure of a 0.6 mm z-cut plate between crossed polarizers, numerical aperture 0.55, no field; 632.8 nm grayscale in TECH, white light in VISUAL.
Each pixel is a propagation direction at angle θ to the optic axis; the retardation 2πd(no − ne(θ))/(λ cosθ) draws the isochromatic rings and the polarizer axes the dark cross. A transverse field makes the crystal biaxial and splits the cross (landing Fig. 0).
Birefringent headings
VISUAL with motion allowed: headings carry a faint doubled image in two hues offset by about one pixel; hovering removes it.
A ray entering a birefringent crystal splits into ordinary and extraordinary rays; for LN at 633 nm, no − ne is about 0.084, which displaces the two images of an object seen through a thick plate.
Photorefractive trace
VISUAL with motion allowed: the pointer leaves a faint 532 nm green trace that fades and is cleared 15 s after the pointer stops (display timing).
Light excites electrons from Fe2+ and other donor sites; the bulk photovoltaic current moves them along the c axis until they are trapped, and the space-charge field changes ne through the Pockels effect. The written index persists for the dielectric relaxation time εε0/σ: about 7 h to 29 days in the dark for ε33 = 28 and a dark conductivity of 10−14 to 10−16 S/m (range from Volk & Wöhlecke 2009, p. 60).
Green-induced infrared absorption
VISUAL: marks drawn in infrared false color within 40 px of the pointer dim to 35% and recover over 2.5 s.
532 nm light creates small polarons (electrons bound at NbLi antisites) whose absorption band lies in the near infrared, so a green beam raises the infrared loss of a frequency doubler; the absorption decays after the green light is removed.
Bias drift
Footer, VISUAL: the operating point of an MZM transfer curve drifts with a single time constant of 40 s over 90° (display values); a click re-locks it. TECH holds it at quadrature.
A DC bias on a thin-film LN modulator is screened by charge moving in the film, cladding and interfaces, so the phase set by a constant voltage relaxes over seconds to hours (EO response measured from 1 mHz to 1 MHz by Holzgrafe et al. 2024, doi:10.1364/OE.507536).
Poled rules
Masthead band and VISUAL section rules: alternating ±z domains at 2 px per µm with the first-order QPM period of the page: 6.82 µm for 1064 → 532 nm (landing), 18.99 µm for 1550 → 775 nm (Light, phase matching).
Reversing the ferroelectric domain every coherence length flips the sign of d33 and keeps the second harmonic growing: Λ = λ / (2 (ne(λ/2) − ne(λ))), computed live from the Zelmon 1997 congruent ne at 21 °C.
Li-vacancy texture
VISUAL background: a triangular dot lattice with 4.0% of the dots missing and 1.0% drawn as rings.
Congruent LN grows Li-poor, [Li]/[Nb] = 0.94 (Volk & Wöhlecke 2009, p. 9). In the Li-site vacancy model (Li1−5xNbxV4x)NbO3, (1 − 5x)/(1 + x) = 0.94 gives x = 0.0101: 4.04% of Li sites empty and 1.01% occupied by Nb antisites. Lattice spacing is decorative.
3m ornaments
VISUAL: a stereogram glyph before every heading (threefold axis, three mirror planes); cards cut with one 60° facet. No four-, five- or eightfold ornament appears.
LN belongs to point group 3m: one threefold rotation axis along c and three mirror planes containing it. Neumann's principle then fixes which tensor components vanish or are tied, e.g. four independent Pockels coefficients r13, r22, r33, r51.
Conoscope logo
Masthead logo and favicon: the computed conoscopic figure of a 0.6 mm z-cut plate between crossed polarizers, numerical aperture 0.55, no field; 632.8 nm grayscale in TECH, white light in VISUAL.
Each pixel is a propagation direction at angle θ to the optic axis; the retardation 2πd(no − ne(θ))/(λ cosθ) draws the isochromatic rings and the polarizer axes the dark cross. A transverse field makes the crystal biaxial and splits the cross (landing Fig. 0).
Aa
Birefringent headings
VISUAL with motion allowed: headings carry a faint doubled image in two hues offset by about one pixel; hovering removes it.
A ray entering a birefringent crystal splits into ordinary and extraordinary rays; for LN at 633 nm, no − ne is about 0.084, which displaces the two images of an object seen through a thick plate.