Hologram recording on photorefractive material

[rogdal]

Good morning,

I am developing an experiment on how to study the kinetics of etching/erasure of holographic lattices in a photorefractive material and I have some doubts about the procedure to follow. I have a single-mode He-Ne laser with monochromatic light of wavelength 632.8 nm and the photorefractive material is a LiNbO3 plate 0.5 cm thick and about 1 cm long by 1 cm wide.

First, to record a holographic lattice on the material, I built a Michelson interferometer and placed the LiNbO3 plate at the end where the two beams meet, so that the interference pattern was generated on the surface of the LiNbO3 plate. By adjusting the mirrors, the beams interfere in such a way that the fringes of the pattern are all vertical and the separation between them is in the order of microns. As I understand it, in order to etch the holographic lattice, it is necessary to leave the plate exposed to this interference pattern for some time.

This is where my first doubts arise:

What I have done so far, is it correct or should it be done in a different way?
How long should I leave the LiNbO3 plate exposed to the interference pattern?
Does it have to be done in complete darkness or can it be done with the room lights on?

And then I have other questions about the next steps to follow in my analysis.

What instrumentation would I need to study the etching kinetics?
How do I erase the etched network on the glass?

I thank you in advance for your help (and hints) and if you could recommend any article or book for further research I would also appreciate it very much.

Best regards.