Measurement of the spatial phase shift in high-gain photorefractive materials

The correct determination of the spatial phase shift phi(p) in photorefractive materials is crucial to the proper characterization of novel materials. It is shown that the grating translation techniques commonly used for the measurement of phi(p) need to be reevaluated for high-gain materials. Strong energy and phase coupling leads to nonuniform slanted gratings, which result in an apparent dependence of the phase shift of the beam ratio and the optical polarization. A revised theory is presented, and analytical solutions are obtained for the special case of phi(p) congruent to pi/2. Numerical solutions for arbitrary phi(p) are in good agreement with measurements in a photorefactive polymer. (C) 1997 Optical Society of America.