Elastic light scattering with a LiNbO3 waveguide

We present the measurements of hemispherical elastic scattering of light guided by different modes of a planar LiNbO3 waveguide. It is shown that the fundamental and the lowest-order modes are more sensitive to the scattering properties of the air-core interface, whereas higher-order modes are more sensitive to the optical inhomogeneities of the core-substrate interface. We also demonstrate that because of static polarization of LiNbO3 crystal, the air-core interface is sensitive to the presence of dust particles in air, which causes a change in the scattered light based on time of observation. This sensitivity could be used to elaborate compact sensors of air contamination.