Anomalous Behaviour of Photorefractive Grating Erasure Owing to Existence of both Negative and Positive Carriers

In LiNbO₃:Fe, anomalous behaviour of grating erasure is observed with different wavelengths, i.e. rapid grating erasure in the short wavelength range, which deviates from the results predicted by the electron transport band model. The deviation is related to the coexistence of electrons and holes in photorefraction, and charge-transfer process including electrons and hole has been proposed. The electron and hole contributions to photoconductivity have been identified by experiments. We also give the theoretical dependence of electron photo-excitation coefficient S of the Fe centre on the wavelength.