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Optical gain by a simple photoisomerization process

Nature Materials volume 7, pages 490–497 (2008)Cite this article

Abstract

Organic holographic materials are pursued as versatile and cheap data-storage materials. It is generally assumed that under steady-state conditions, only photorefractive holographic media exhibit a non-local response to a light-intensity pattern, which results in an asymmetric two-beam coupling or ‘gain’, where intensity is transferred from one beam to the other as a measure of writing efficiency. Here, we demonstrate non-local holographic recording in a non-photorefractive material. We demonstrate that reversible photoisomerization gratings recorded in a non-photorefractive azo-based material exhibit large optical gain coefficients beyond 1,000 cm−1, even for polarization gratings. The grating characteristics differ markedly from classical photorefractive features, but can be modelled by considering the influence of the Poynting vector on the photoisomerization. The external control of the Poynting vector enables manipulation of the gain coefficient, including its sign (the direction of energy exchange), a novel phenomenon we refer to as ‘gain steering’. A very high sensitivity of about 100 cm2 J−1 was achieved. This high sensitivity, combined with a high spatial resolution, suggests a great technical advantage for applications in image processing and phase conjugation.

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Figure 1: Temporal evolution of the gratings.
Figure 2: Experimental dependencies of the characteristic grating parameters.
Figure 3: Schematic diagram of the model.
Figure 4: Influence of gain steering on different recording geometries.
Figure 5: Temporal evolution of gain steering.

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge fruitful discussions with B. Sturman (Institute of Automation and Electrometry, Novosibirsk), K. Buse (University of Bonn), S. Köber, A. Ruhl and M. Salvador (all University of Cologne). We also thank N. Benter (University of Bonn) for electro-optic measurements. F.d.M. thanks MAT2006-02394 for financial support.

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Author notes

  1. Francisco Gallego-Gómez

    Present address: Current address: Department of Applied Physics, University of Alicante, 03690 Alicante, Spain,

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chemistry Department, University of Cologne, Luxemburgerstrasse 116, 50939 Cologne, Germany

    Francisco Gallego-Gómez & Klaus Meerholz

  2. Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Campus de Cantoblanco, 28049 Madrid, Spain

    Francisco del Monte

Authors
  1. Francisco Gallego-Gómez
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  3. Klaus Meerholz
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Correspondence to Klaus Meerholz.

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Gallego-Gómez, F., del Monte, F. & Meerholz, K. Optical gain by a simple photoisomerization process. Nature Mater 7, 490–497 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat2186

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