Photorefractive Effect in CdSSe:V Crystals

AbstractWe present two-wave mixing results obtained with CdSSe:V crystals. A large photorefractive gain of 0.24 cm-1 was observed at 633 nm with an optical intensity of 60 mW/cm2 and a grating period of 1.6 μrm. At this wavelength, we measured the photorefractive gain as a function of the grating period and incident optical intensity. To our knowledge, this is the first observation of the photorefractive effect in vanadium doped CdSSe crystals. The CdSSe crystals were grown by physical vapor transport (PVT) and doped with 150 ppm (nominal) vanadium for creating trap centers. The grown crystal has a large crystal size, good optical quality and a medium resistivity of 10-5 - 108 Ω-cm. Room temperature absorption and low temperature photoluminescence spectroscopy measurements are also discussed. With a significant photorefractive effect, the CdSSe:V crystals are promising for many device applications based on photorefractive effect, including optical limiting devices in the visible region.