Abstract

It has been reported that after several sequential recording-revealing-poling processes, polarization fatigue is often observed in ferroelectric photorefractive crystals. A direct consequence of this is a reduction in the diffraction efficiency from one recording cycle to the next. The effect of crystal fatigue on the diffraction efficiency of electrically fixed photorefractive gratings in a cerium-doped SBN:60 is studied. We have observed that applying an AC field to the crystal eliminates crystal fatigue in ferroelectrics and improves diffraction efficiency of electrically fixed volume gratings. We demonstrate the benefits of utilizing the hysteresis loop and electrical fixing process to remove polarization fatigue.

© 2005 Optical Society of America