Adiabatic three-wave volume hologram: large efficiency independent of grating strength and polarization.

A transmission hologram with two volume gratings is considered in the regime of wave A diffracted into wave B via an intermediate weakly excited wave C. In analogy to the phenomenon of stimulated Raman adiabatic passage in nonlinear optics, this new scheme demonstrates diffraction efficiency with low sensitivity to the hologram's strength. A theory of three-wave adiabatic coupling has been developed and explored analytically. Numerical results show an example of a coupling profile that preserves high diffraction efficiency with almost no dependence on the hologram's strength, including the suppressed influence of polarization.