We propose and analyze the properties of photorefractive Fabry-Perot étalons that consist of photorefractive crystal plates with high-reflectance coatings. Some new phenomena such as nonreciprocity, bandwidth narrowing, and broadening are presented.
We describe observations of asymmetric transmission through a Fabry-Perot etalon which contains a photorefractive crystal of barium titanate. The etalon transmission is asymmetric due to two-beam energy coupling in the photorefractive crystal as predicted by He et al. [Q. B. He, P. Yeh and C. Gu, Opt. Lett, 17, 664 (1992)]. We have observed up to 25% asymmetry in the contrast, the ratio between the maximum and minimum transmittance, when the barium titanate crystal is reversed within the etalon. The etalon transmission is also intensity-dependent due to the intensity dependence of photorefractive two-beam energy coupling.