The photorefractive effect

Journal Article · Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 EDT 1990 · Scientific American; (USA)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican1090-62· OSTI ID:6222931

Pepper, D M ^[1]; Kukhtarev, N V ^[2]

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1. Pepperdine Univ., CA (USA)
2. Institute of Physics, Kiev (Ukrainian SSR)

When Arthur Ashkin and his colleagues at Bell Laboratories first noticed the photorefractive effect some 25 years ago, they considered the phenomenon a curiosity at best and a complete nuisance at worst. Today photorefractive materials are being shaped into components for a new generation of computers that exploit light instead of electricity. During the past 25 years investigators have discovered a wide variety of photorefractive materials, including insulators, semiconductors and organic compounds. Photorefractive materials, like film emulsions, change rapidly when exposed to bright light, respond slowly when subjected to dim light and capture sharp detail when struck by some intricate pattern of light. Unlike film, photorefractive materials are erasable: images can be stored or obliterated at whim or by design. By virtue of their sensitivity, robustness, and unique optical properties, photorefractive materials have the potential to be fashioned into data-processing elements for optical computers. In theory, these devices would allow optical computers to process information at much faster rates than their electronic counterparts. Employing photorefractive materials, workers have already developed the optical analogue to the transistor: if two laser beams interact within a photorefractive material, one beam can control, switch or amplify the second beam. Photorefractive materials also lie at the heart of devices that trace the edges of images, that connect networks of lasers and that store three-dimensional images.

• OSTI ID: 6222931
• Journal Information: Scientific American; (USA), Vol. 263:4; ISSN 0036-8733
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS//MATHEMATICS, COMPUTING, AND INFORMATION SCIENCE
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
BARIUM COMPOUNDS
OPTICAL PROPERTIES
GALLIUM ARSENIDES
OPTICAL COMPUTERS
DESIGN
ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
TITANATES
CRYSTAL DEFECTS
ELECTRICAL INSULATORS
ELECTRICAL PROPERTIES
LASER RADIATION
LASERS
MATERIALS
MODE LOCKING
NONLINEAR OPTICS
REFRACTIVITY
RESEARCH PROGRAMS
SEMICONDUCTOR MATERIALS
USES
VARIATIONS
VISIBLE SPECTRA
ALKALINE EARTH METAL COMPOUNDS
ARSENIC COMPOUNDS
ARSENIDES
COMPUTERS
CRYSTAL STRUCTURE
ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT
ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
EQUIPMENT
GALLIUM COMPOUNDS
OPTICS
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
PNICTIDES
RADIATIONS
SPECTRA
TITANIUM COMPOUNDS
TRANSITION ELEMENT COMPOUNDS
990200* - Mathematics & Computers
360603 - Materials- Properties