Transient self bending of laser beam in biased photorefractive Bi/sub 12/TiO/sub 20/ crystal

Summary form only given. Here we report, to our knowledge for the first time, the transient self-bending of the laser beam in photorefractive crystal (PRC) biased by the external DC electric field. The effect is ensured by the dynamic shift of the photocarrier distribution from the beam area under the influence of the driving electric field. As a result, at the beginning of illumination (but not in steady-state) the photoinduced photorefractive lens is formed not in the center of the beam and the latter experiences some bending via this lens.