Light Induced Properties and Thermal Fixing in Photorefractive Lead Barium Niobate Crystals

Lead barium niobate (Pb1-xBaxNb2O6, PBN1-x) is a very promising photorefractive material for applications such as holographic data storage. We investigate the light induced absorption, photorefractive properties, such as the sensitivity, diffraction efficiency, and gain, and thermal fixing properties in Ce doped tetragonal PBN50, and compare with the properties of an undoped PBN sample. Non-single photon behavior was observed only in Ce doped sample, but not in the undoped sample. Thermal fixing was achieved in both undoped and Ce doped samples at temperatures above 70oC. The room temperature life times after thermal fixing were estimated to be 30 hours and 20 days for undoped and Ce doped samples, respectively.