OPTICAL BISTABILITY IN 2ND-ORDER NONLINEAR MEDIA .2. FERROELECTRICS (EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS)

In this paper, some experimental results concerning optical bistabilit y in a ferroelectric crystal (BaTiO3) are presented. A strong laser be am interacts nonlinearly with the material and influences a second (pr obe) beam in such a way that its transmitted part exhibits bistable de pendence on the intensity and the polarization of the first beam. It h as been observed that such a character may be attributed to intensity as well as to polarization of outgoing probe wave. The results obtaine d reflect the symmetry of the sample which strongly depends on the tem perature.