Infrared photo-induced waveguides in bulk photorefractive materials for reconfigurable optical communications

We propose to take advantage of the potential of photo-induced waveguides in photorefractive materials. This technique is very attractive as regards both the employed wavelengths and the possibility of obtaining an alloptical dynamical reconfigurability of the induced guiding structures. We will report on experimental demonstrations of self-induced photonic components using nonlinear beam interaction in photorefractive crystals. First we demonstrated collisions between two co-propagating parallel coherent beams inside the photorefractive semiconductor iron doped Indium Phosphide (InP : Fe) at λ = 1064 nm for optical routing applications. In a second time we focus on the interactions between two counter-propagating solitons in InP:Fe to automatically couple a laser beam to an optical fiber.