ELASTIC PROPERTIES OF PROTON EXCHANGED LITHIUM-NIOBATE

A new method is demonstrated for determination of elastic constants of anisotropic layers on arbitrarily anisotropic and piezoelectric substrates only using the easily measured velocity of surface acoustic waves. By means of a detailed theoretical analysis it is shown that by use of the presented method, the elastic stiffness constants and propagation properties of any nonpiezoelectric isotropic, cubic, or even trigonal layer can be determined. The method is applied to proton-exchanged lithium niobate (PE:LiNbO3). It is reported that complete measurements of dispersion characteristics of Rayleigh waves on Y-cut PE:LiNbO3 and calculated values of all elastic stiffness constants of the proton-exchanged film.