High Speed Photorefractive Polymer Composites

D. Wright, M. A. Díaz-García, J. D. Casperson, M. DeClue and W. E. Moerner
R. J. Twieg

Two novel photorefractive polymer composites are presented that exhibit the fastest response times reported to date by an order of magnitude (t_g ~ 5ms at 1W/cm²), while maintaining large gain coefficients (G ~ 230 and 130cm^-1). These materials show promise for video-rate optical processing applications. The limiting factors of the photorefractive speed in these materials are investigated.