Study of oscillatory behavior of recording process arising from electron–hole competition in strongly oxidized LiNbO3:Ce:Cu

We have investigated ultraviolet (UV) photorefractive effect of lithium niobate doubly doped with Ce and Cu. It is found the diffraction efficiency shows oscillating behavior under UV-light-recording. A model in which electrons and holes can be excited from impurity centers in the UV region is proposed to study the oscillatory behavior of the diffraction efficiency. On the basis of the material equations and the coupled-wave equations, we found that the oscillatory behavior is due to the oscillation of the relative spatial phase shift Φ. And the electron–hole competition may cause the oscillation of the relative spatial phase shift. A switch point from electron grating to hole grating is chosen to realize nonvolatile readout by a red light with high sensitivity (0.4 cm/J).