Photorefractive optical properties of volume phase gratings induced in sillenite crystals, when the grating vector lies on the (111) plane

We study the diffraction efficiency of volume phase gratings in Bi₁₂GeO₂₀, when the grating vector, lying on a (111) plane, is at an angle with respect to the crystallographic direction. An external bias field parallel to the direction is applied during recording, thus, the recording conditions depend on the grating vector orientation. The basic parameters determining the diffraction efficiency are the grating vector orientation, the rotatory power and the field-induced linear birefringence (primary and secondary). Analytic expressions for the diffraction efficiency have been obtained by taking into account all the above-mentioned parameters, provided that linearly polarized light is incident on the crystal. In this configuration, the influence of the secondary electro-optic effect (inverse piezoelectric and photoelastic effects) to the diffraction efficiency is actually stronger than the influence of the primary effect. Experimental results are given. Received: 3 January 2000 / Revised version: 6 June 2000 / Published online: 13 September 2000