Abstract

It was already demonstrated that a second order nonlinearity may be induced by all-optical means in centrosymmetric materials [1]. The writing process has been later on speed up by simultaneous excitation of the material with high intensity laser pulses at both the fundamental and the harmonic wavelength [2] (the so-called “seeding technique”) The induced quadratic nonlinearity comes from the generation of a permanent and micro-structured de field resulting from the coherent photocurrent due to the beating between the fundamental optical field and its harmonic The method has been applied to all-optical poling and second harmonic generation in silica optical fibers, in polymer films and in various types of oxide glasses However, to the best of our knowledge, poling and SHG has never been reported for non oxide glasses. In this paper we present the results of our experiments on the all-optical poling of a chalcohalogenide glass and we make a comparison with the behaviors and performance obtained with a commercial lead-salt glass (Schott SF57)

© 2000 IEEE