Optical creation and erasure of the linear electrooptical effect in silica fiber

We study the creation and erasure of the linear electrooptical effect in silicate fibers by optical poling. Carriers are released by exposure to green light and displaced with simultaneous application of an internal dc field. The second order nonlinear coefficient induced grows with poling bias. The field recorded (~10⁸ V/m) is comparable to that obtained through classical thermal poling of fibers. In the regime studied here, the second-order nonlinearity induced (~0.06 pm/V) is limited by the field applied during poling (1.2 × 10⁸ V/m). Optical erasure with high-power green light alone is very efficient. The dynamics of the writing and erasing process is discussed, and the two dimensional (2D) field distribution across the fiber is simulated.