Calculation of the gain in optically active photorefractive crystals considering the self-diffraction in a two-wave mixing process

We present a physical and computational procedure to calculate the gain in a two-wave mixing process in a thick optically active photorefractive BSO crystal under diffusion regime. The procedure is based on the integration of the amplitude of the signal beam through the sample. In the model, the effects of self-diffraction are taken into account by using the more general expression of the diffraction efficiency for the case of dynamic gratings. It allows also including the effects of the optical activity on the coupling factors and not only on the rotation of the optical field vectors when the waves are propagated along the crystal. The <001> crystallographic configuration is used. The model is used to predict the behavior of the gain as a function of the beam polarization angle. Numerical and experimental results using crystals with thickness of 5 mm and 10 mm are presented. A good agreement between the proposed model and the experimental measurements is observed.