Diffraction Efficiency and Angular Selectivity of Volume Phase Holograms Recorded in Photorefractive Materials

The recording and replay of volume phase gratings in photorefractive crystals is investigated for both transmission and reflection geometries. Differential equations are derived and solved for a range of parameters including the length of the crystal, the magnitude, spatial distribution and phase angle of the refractive index modulation, the beam ratio at recording, and the angular range at replay. The recording process is assumed to reach a steady-state limit before replay with a weak probe beam. Solution of the repaly equations is mainly by numerical integration, although analytic solutions are derived for special cases. It is found that in certain cases the diffraction efficiency can be greatly increased by replaying the hologram at an angle different from the recording angle.