Real-time monitoring of all-optical poling by two-beam second-harmonic generation

We demonstrate a simple method for monitoring all-optical poling in real time. The poling pattern created by the writing beam at the fundamental frequency and the seed beam at the second-harmonic frequency is reconstructed by two-beam second-harmonic generation because of the writing beam and an additional probe beam at the fundamental frequency. When the probe beam is sufficiently weak, it does not distort the poling process. The method provides a significantly stronger signal than monitoring based on a probe beam alone.