Phase-compensated holographic recording based on anisotropic photorefractive diffraction

We report a simple actively stabilized setup for holographic recording on sillenite photorefractive crystals that is based on the anisotropic diffraction properties of these materials. The method is much simpler than previously published ones, requires neither phase modulation nor synchronous phase-sensitive detection, and needs no external reference. We describe the successful operation of this stabilization procedure for a Bi(12)TiO(20) crystal in a practical holographic interferometry setup, using the 632.8-nm wavelength of a He-Ne laser.