High purity stoichiometric lithium niobate nanocrytalline were synthesized with the low-temperature soft-chemical route. All the products were characterized with X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and high resolution transition electron microscopy (HRTEM). An outstanding advantage of such a soft-chemical synthesis route is that the reaction temperature required to produce niobate crystalline is much lower than those in other methods. Structure characterization results indicated that the LiNbO(3) powders prepared had rhombohedral morphology. X-ray diffraction and HRTEM results of the as-prepared sample indicate that the sample is well crystallized. The Raman and Fourier transform (FT) infrared properties of the niobates were studied. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.