All optical poling and second harmonic generation in glasses: theory and experiment

Theoretical and experimental evidence of light driven electron-hole self-organization resulting in amplification of seed static electric field is presented. The amplification allowed us to perform all optical poling of conventional commercial "heavy flint" silica glass. The chi ((2))-grating is optically recorded in the initially centrosymmetric glass and the second harmonic generation (SHG) is observed in poled noncentrosymmetric material. The fundamental and frequency doubled output of a YAG:Nd3+ laser starts the poling process creating rectified DC-electric field. Then single wavelength radiation (either fundamental or frequency doubled output) proceeds with optical recording of nonlinear grating amplifying this initial DC-electric field. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.