Investigation of the self-pumped two-beam coupling in a photorefractive material using beam propagation simulation

Self-pumped contra-directional two-beam coupling is simulated in a photorefractive medium for arbitrary shaped beams using a split-step beam propagation method. When the photovoltaic effect is added to the model that is first developed for diffusion dominated materials, the simulation shows enhancement of the two-beam coupling efficiency, in agreement with published experimental observations. Simulation results including the effects of absorption and dark conductivity will be presented also.