Refractive index and gain grating in Nd:YVO4: Application to speckle vibrometry and photoacoustic detection

Probing local displacements on a scattering surface can be achieved using an adaptive interferometer. The photorefractive- crystal-based interferometer is popular, but alternatives exist such as an adaptive gain interferometer. Such setups take advantage of the nonlinear phenomena in laser media. Because of the gain saturation, it is possible to write a gain hologram and a refractive index hologram to achieve an adaptive interferometer with a linear response. In addition, laser-media-based setups have a fast response time (≤100 μs), which makes them interesting for applications such as detection of photoacoustic waves in living biological samples.