Optically induced three-dimensional photonic lattices and quasi-crystallographic structures

Abstract

We present an experimental investigation of the formation of three-dimensional (3D) nonlinear photonic lattices. They are optically induced inside an externally biased cerium doped strontium barium niobate (SBN) photorefractive crystal by a single step multiple beam interference approach. An easy implementation of this scheme using a spatial light modulator (SLM) is demonstrated making the induced structures effortlessly reconfigurable and allowing for a rich variety of two or three dimensional periodic and quasi-periodic crystallographic structures. We show an analysis of these nonlinear photonic lattices based on plane wave guiding, momentum space spectroscopy, and far field diffraction pattern imaging.