Polarized wave coupling and selection rules violation in alkali-halide crystals with F(sub A) centers

The self-diffraction of light in alkali-halide (KCl) crystals with FA centers was investigated to determine the role of F(subA) center kinetics under resonant optical excitation in polarization holographic recording. It was shown that the diffraction efficiency can be substantially increased when the population of the active orientations is increased by lateral illumination of the crystal with an auxiliary beam. This indicates that the the factor characterizing the selection rules violation for F(subA) center strongly influences the self-diffraction properties of KCl crystals.