Effect of the relative phase of grating components on the temporal behavior of photorefractive four-wave mixing

We show that the relative phase of the grating components has a large effec t on the temporal behavior of four-wave mixing. When the two main component s of the grating are in phase, the temporal behavior, especially during gra ting erasure, is totally different from that when the two components are ou t of phase. We give experimental results of orthogonally polarized four-wav e mixing for two different BaTiO3 crystals that are in good agreement with our theoretical calculations. In our calculations we use a simplified numer ical method to solve the coupled-wave equations, and the temporal analysis is based on a model with multiple charge recombination. (C) 2001 Optical So ciety of America.