Holographic recording with orthogonally polarized waves in centrosymmetric

¹ Institut für Kristallographie, Universität zu Köln Zülpicherstr. 49b, D-50674 Köln, Germany
² I.Physikalisches Institut, Universität zu Köln Zülpicherstr. 77, D-50934 Köln, Germany
³ Institut für Experimentalphysik, Universität Wien Boltzmanngasse 5, A-1090 Wien, Austria

Corresponding author: m.imlau@uni-koeln.de

Received: 17 July 2000
Accepted: 26 November 2000

Abstract

Recording of holographic gratings by excitation of long-living metastable electronic states in centrosymmetric sodium nitroprusside can be performed with mutually orthogonal polarized waves. Two different cases have to be distinguished: 1) In a b-cut the optimum diffraction efficiency of 15% is achieved if the mutually orthogonal polarized writing waves form an angle of 45 with respect to the a- and c-axis. This, together with the fact that the polarization state is not changed in the diffraction process, indicates that the gratings originate from the presence of light-induced linear dichroism. 2) For a c-cut the polarization of the diffracted wave turns out to be orthogonal to the one of the incident beam. The efficiency of this so-called anisotropic diffraction reaches a maximum of up to 90% for waves mutually orthogonal polarized along the a- and b-axis.