Field asymmetry of the dynamic gain coefficient in organic photorefractive devices

The performance of amorphous organic photorefractive materials in holographic two-beam coupling experiments in the typical tilted geometry was found to be asymmetric with respect to the applied electric field direction. For one field direction, light is coupled into the polymer layer and can be detected on the side of the devices. For the other, the originally Gaussian-shaped writing beams show a shoulder or even split into two. The strength of the asymmetry depends on the diameter of the beams writing the hologram. We demonstrate that this effect is due to beam fanning. As a result of the fanning, the apparent photorefractive gain coefficients take on unphysical values.