Abstract

The study of photorefractive gratings using short light pulses can give complementary information to wave mixing experiments performed with continuous wave lasers. By selecting a suitable laser with a pulse duration shorter than the characteristic times involved in the photorefractive effect, one is able to separate temporally the process of photoexcitation of charge carriers from a donor level and the charge transport processes that produce the buildup of an inhomogeneous space-charge distribution. In many experiments this permits a substantial simplification in the theoretical analysis of the measured data, allowing a better insight into the underlying physical processes. Exact numerical solutions can be obtained for the time scales relevant to short-pulse experiments.

© 1993 Optical Society of America