Abstract

We demonstrate that the spatially modulated electric field that is associated with a photorefractive grating generates stress and strain components with symmetries that are different from those induced by a uniform electric field. Therefore, because of piezoelectricity and the elasto-optic effect, the symmetries of the effective dielectric and electro-optic constants to be used to describe the photorefractive effect differ from the symmetries of the usual dielectric and electro-optic tensors. We derive analytical expressions to be used to compute these new constants from the measured clamped and unclamped dielectric and electro-optic coefficients. Experimental evidence is presented.

© 1991 Optical Society of America

Influence of piezoelectric and photoelastic effects on pulse hologram recording in photorefractive crystals

R. Litvinov and S. Shandarov
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 11(7) 1204-1210 (1994)

Electro-optic and dielectric properties of photorefractive BaTiO₃ and KNbO₃

Marko Zgonik, Kiyoshi Nakagawa, and Peter Günter
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 12(8) 1416-1421 (1995)

Investigation of the internal field in photorefractive materials and measurement of the effective electro-optic coefficient

A. Grunnet-Jepsen, I. Aubrecht, and L. Solymar
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 12(5) 921-929 (1995)

Clamped–unclamped electro-optic coefficient dilemma in photorefractive phenomena

P. Günter and M. Zgonik
Opt. Lett. 16(23) 1826-1828 (1991)

Orientation and polarization effects of two-beam coupling in a cubic optically active photorefractive piezoelectric BSO crystal

V. V. Shepelevich, N. N. Egorov, and Victor Shepelevich
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 11(8) 1394-1402 (1994)