ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a review of theoretical and experimental work on the photorefractive effect in view of practical applications in the field of optical computing. It presents the mechanism of the photorefractive grating recording and the relevant parameters for optical processing applications. The chapter analyzes the conditions for efficient wave mixing in photorefractive media and describes various applications, framed in the context of optical computing. The parameters involved in applications of photorefractive crystals are: the crystal sensitivity, the grating build-up time constants and the steady-state diffraction efficiency. A precise knowledge of the spatial frequency response of photorefractive crystals is important for applications to coherent image amplification and optical signal processing. In the area of digital optical computing, two-beam coupling in photorefractive materials offer unique features that suggest the implementation of single instruction multiple data machines. Dynamic photorefractive crystals potentially offer different key features for application to parallel information storage.
