Poly(vinyl alcohol-acrylamide) photopolymers are materials of interest in the field of digital information storage (holographic memories). We analyzed the behavior of a 1-mm-thick photopolymer. Using a standard holographic setup, we recorded unslanted diffraction gratings. The material has high angular selectivity (0.4 degrees), good sensitivity (88 mJ/cm2), and small losses caused by absorptio...

We discuss thermal fixing as a solution to the volatility problem in holographic storage systems that use photorefractive materials such as LiNbO(3):Fe. We present a systematic study to characterize the effect of thermal fixing on the error performance of a large-scale holographic memory. We introduce a novel, to our knowledge, incremental fixing schedule to improve the overall system fixing ef...

In this Letter, we study a nonlinear interferometric setup based on diffraction, rather than beam combining. It consists of a nonlinear analog of Young's double-slit experiment where a nonlinear material is placed exactly after one of the slits. The presence of nonlinearity breaks the transverse spatial symmetry of the system and, thus, modifies the optical path. For moderate nonlinearities, th...

Luminescent acentric and homochiral coordination compounds, which possess new topological networks, multiple helical structures and NLO properties, have been generated through the control of a versatile asymmetric ligand as well as inorganic anions, and this suggests a new protocol for preparing acentric and chiral materials.