Optical polarization driven giant relief modulation in amorphous chalcogenide glasses

We report on the observation of giant relief modulation in amorphous chalcogenide As2S3 glass under polarization modulated near band gap light illumination. We show that these periodic modulations are created as a result of the photoinduced mass transport despite the very low and uniform intensity light illumination. A phenomenological model, based on a photoinduced alignment of anisotropic microvolumes within the glass, is proposed to explain the phenomenon.