Lithium tantalate (_LiTaO3) has a combination of unique electro-optical, piezoelectric and pyroelectric properties with good mechanical and chemical stability, a high transparency range (0.4µm – 5µm) and a high optical damage threshold.

Lithium tantalate is mainly used as an electro-optical material. Its optical, electro-optical and non-linear properties are similar to lithium niobate (high effective, non-linear, electro-optical and battery-optical coefficients). But lithium tantalate has a higher damage threshold (^>500MW/cm2 for ns-pulsed lasers).

Lithium tantalate is often used for nonlinear optics, electro-optic modulators, pyroelectric detectors, passive infrared sensors such as motion detectors, terahertz generation and detection, cell phones and for possible pyroelectric core fusion.