Optical restoration of photorefractive holograms through self-enhanced diffraction

For the first time to our knowledge, we demonstrate the use of self-enhanced diffraction to optically restore weak dynamic volume holograms. This restoration process is achieved through the use of a novel beam-toggling scheme that significantly enhances the steady-state diffraction efficiency of volume index gratings stored in photorefractive media. Experiments demonstrating and confirming theory are presented and discussed.