Simultaneous acquisition of pi/2 phase-stepped interferograms with a photorefractive Bi(12)GeO(20) crystal: application to real-time double-pulse holography

Imaging of transient surface acoustic waves by full-field photorefractive interferometry

A stroboscopic full-field imaging technique based on photorefractive interferometry for the visualization of rapidly changing surface displacement fields by using of a standard charge-coupled device (CCD) camera is presented. The photorefractive buildup of the space charge field during and after probe laser pulses is simulated numerically. The resulting anisotropic diffraction upon the refractive index grating and the interference between the polarization-rotated diffracted reference beam and the transmitted signal beam are modeled theoretically. The method is experimentally demonstrated by full-field imaging of the propagation of photoacoustically generated surface acoustic waves with a temporal resolution of nanoseconds. The surface acoustic wave propagation in a 23 mm × 17 mm area on an aluminum plate was visualized with 520 × 696 pixels of the CCD sensor, yielding a spatial resolution of 33 μm. The short pulse duration (8 ns) of the probe laser yields the capability of imaging SAWs with frequencies up to 60 MHz.

Real-time holographic interferometry with double two-wave mixing in photorefractive crystals

We present a real-time holographic interferometer for which two reference waves of different phases are created by two-wave mixing with a stationary signal wave in a photorefractive crystal. These waves are reconstructions of the stationary signal wave and interfere with the momentary (changing) signal wave in the manner of a holographic real-time interferometer. A fast change (phase or intensity) of the signal wave leads to different intensity changes in both interferograms that are jointly used for evaluation. With an electric dc field applied to the crystal, a high sensitivity for measuring phase changes (down to lambda/50, lambda = 633 nm) is found, and the sign of the phase change can be determined.