Experimental determination of electric-field-induced differences in structure-factor phases of the order of 2%

In order to understand the induced electron-density response of covalently bonded materials to an externally applied electric field, the change of structure-factor phases of several weak reflections of GaAs has been measured by three-beam interferences. Using a modulation technique, phase variations of the order of 1 degrees for a field strength of 1 kV mm(-1) were determined. Although the statistics of these first experiments are rather poor, the experiment verifies qualitatively the predictions of a semi-empirical bond-charge model. The measured phase variation is the smallest value determined up to now.