Kazuo KURODA^*, Yusuke MATSUHASHI, Ryushi FUJIMURA, and Tsutomu SHIMURA

Institute of Industrial Science, University of Tokyo, 4-6-1 Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8505, Japan

(Received June 6, 2011; Accepted August 4, 2011)

The optical response of polarization sensitive materials is studied on the basis of a model in which the materials consist of rod molecules that are oriented in random directions. The photoinduced change of the dielectric tensor is expressed as a function of the electric field in a general form. Using this expression, we derive the vectorial coupled wave equations in volume polarization holograms. We discuss the basic properties of polarization holograms.

Key words: polarization holography, photoanisotropy, coupled wave equations

^*E-mail address: kuroda@iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp