Submillisecond response of a photorefractive polymer under single nanosecond pulse exposure

Individual nanosecond pulses at $532nm$ are applied to record gratings in photorefractive composite. At $4mJ∕cm2$ illumination, maximum diffraction efficiencies of 56% have been reached with a build-up time of only $300μs$ $(t1)$ demonstrating one order of magnitude faster recording compared to writing with continuous wave beams. This fast response enables applications in optical processing requiring frame rates of $100Hz$ or more. Due to the short duration of the writing pulses, the recording is insensitive to vibrations.