The Physics and Applications of Photorefractive Materials: (11 Oxford Series in Optical and Imaging Sciences)

Photorefractive materials combine photoconductive and electro-optic properties: light affects their electrical conductivity; their optical properties (refractive index, etc.) are affected by applied electric fields. The aim of this book is to cover the vast range of phenomena occurring in Photorefractive Materials. For Physicists it is part of the fashionable subject of Nonlinear Optics. Engineers tend to place it as part of optoelectronics promising a variety of new devices. This book summarizes the results of 28 years of research in a manner that would appeal both to the beginner (a graduate student who has just entered the field) and to the expert (who might have done research on some aspect of the subject for a decade or more). It is in three parts. Part I serves as an introduction with emphasis on physical principles and simple mathematical models. Part II is a comprehensive account of all the major advances. Its main merit is the organization of the material accompanied by a detailed list of references. Part III is concerned with the enormous range of potential applications.

Table of Contents:
Part I. A bird's eye view of photorefractive interactions General introduction 1: Diffraction phenomena by static and dynamic gratings 2: How light influences material properties 3: How material properties influence light Part II. Discussion of the physics General introduction 4: A history of the photorefractive effect 5: The materials equations 6: The field equations for two-wave mixing 7: Multi-wave mixing 8: Spurious beams 9: Six topics in search of a chapter Part III. Applications General introduction 10: Image amplification and image processing 11: Correlation and associative memories n 12Storage 13: Other applications Appendix A Wave propagation in anisotropic materials Appendix B The electro-optic effect including the piezo-electric contribution Appendix C Determination of photorefractive parameters Bibliography Index

Review :
'will be a valuable text and resource for many novice and experienced scientists and engineers. I learned many new and useful things from it and got a better picture of how the subject developed both historically and conceptually' Stephen Ducharme University of Nebraska '...one of the real strenghts of this book is that it is genuinely well written. The nature of the material is such that it will never be a light read, but the writing itself has such clarity that any difficulties in absorbing the material is intrinsic in material and not the presentation....well thought out in terms of how the material is arranged...the book is well presented and a useful reference. For people in the active field, it does a fine job in placing their results in a strong experimental and theoretical context' Photonics Science Reviews