Recent advances in photorefractive fibers

In this presentation we review recent advances in growth, evaluation, and application of photorefractive fibers for optical signal processing and data storage. Optical ferroelectric fibers are attractive alternatives to bulk photorefractives, because optical energy can be confined over longer interaction lengths, and fibers of good optical quality are easier to grow than bulk crystals, at least for certain morphologies. Since the material properties and the applications for which these fibers can be used are closely related, we will discuss both topics. Wave interactions in photorefractive fibers are discussed from a theoretical viewpoint, and applications, such as beam coupling in periodically poled fibers, stimulated back scattering in c-axis SBN fibers, and data storage in a-axis SBN fibers, including consideration of cross talk for multiplexed holograms are presented. The dependence of hologram cross talk on striations and other compositional variations in fibers is considered, and ways to overcome these problems are discussed.