Alleviation of image distortion due to striations in a photorefractive medium by using a phase-conjugated reference wave

Growth-induced striations in photorefractive media scatter transmitted light, degrading their performance in holographic applications. We model this phenomenon by considering the striations to be a permanent hologram within a medium and compare it with experimental results in a striated strontium barium niobate crystal. We show that the construction of the phase-conjugate signal beam by a phase conjugate of the transmitted reference beam alleviates the effects of distortions that are due to striations.