Pierre-Alexandre Blanche, Ph.D.
Assistant Research Professor

Contact Information
Email: pablanche@optics.arizona.edu
1630 East University Blvd, Tucson, AZ 85721
Tel: (520)626-5389

Photorefractive Organic Materials

Abstract

The photorefractive effect is a reversible photoinduced change of the material refractive index characterized by a phase shift between the illumination and the index pattern. Indeed, while there are several different phenomena that lead to refractive index change in material, the photorefractive effect fingerprint is the phase shift that lead to unique properties like two beam coupling.

The photorefractive effect has been discovered by A. Ashkin at al. in 1966 in LiNbO₃ and LiTaO₃ inorganic crystals. In 1990, the effect has been demonstrated in organic compounds by K. Sutter et al.. Prof. Peyghambarian's group study those materials since more than 10 years and has been the on the forefront in major discoveries on that topic. Photorefractive materials are interesting because they can be used as self-developing and refreshable holographic recording medium.

Photorefractive organic materials are now mature for applications and we have developed a large  holographic 3D display that can be written erased and refreshed within a few minutes (Click this link for more information).

Publications

• M. Eralp et al., “Variation of Bragg condition in low-glass transition photorefractive polymers when recorded in reflection geometry”, Optics Express, vol. 15, pp 11-622-11-628 (2007). pdf
• P. A. Blanche et al, “Photorefractive polymers sensitized by two-photon absorption”, Optics Letters vol. 27, pp 19-21 (2002). pdf
• B. Kippelen et al., “Photorefractive Polymers with NonDestructive Readout”, Advanced Functional Materials, vol. 12, pp 615-620 (2002). pdf
• J. A. Herlocker et al., “Stabilization of the response time in photorefractive polymers”, Applied Physics Letters, vol. 77, pp 2292-2294 (2000). pdf