Holographic recording in amorphous As2S3 films at 633nm

Abstract Holographic grating recording with focused (light intensity I  = 14–124 W/cm 2 ) and unfocused ( I  = 0.50–0.78 W/cm 2 ) 633 nm He–Ne laser sub-bandgap light in non-annealed and annealed a-As 2 S 3 films has been experimentally studied. The focused light recording is found to be much more efficient (diffraction efficiency up to 14.9%, specific recording energy down to 216 J/(cm 2  %)) than the unfocused light recording (0.11%, 72 400 J/(cm 2  %)). Some other properties are also different. The hologram lifetime of more than two years and positive refractive index changes take place in the case of focused recording versus two days and negative refractive index changes for unfocused r…