Photoinduced birefringence in tellurite glasses

摘要

We report on photoinduced birefringence in TeO_(2)-based glasses on exposure to linearly polarized subbandgap light. It is shown that the influence of glass-network modifiers, such as ZnO, Na_(2)O, BaO, and of dopant Er_(2)O_(3), on the photoinduced birefringence is not substantial indicating a dominating role of the TeO_(2) component. Photoinduced birefringence is optically reversible and its mechanism is proposed to be due to laser-induced alignment of intrinsic anisotropic defects of tellurite glass, such as distorted TeO_(4) bipyramids.