Ultralong dark decay measurements in BaTiO sub(3)

This paper reports the observations of BaTiO sub(3) crystals with extrapolated room-temperature dark storage times ranging from hours to thousands of years. The erasure-induced grating times in these samples are typical of other BaTiO sub(3) samples and are much faster than the equivalent times in LiNbO sub(3) or LiTaO sub(3). Thus Ce-doped or heavily Co-doped BaTiO sub(3) can be considered substitutes for LiNbO sub(3) in multiplexing experiments in which dark storage is important and fixing is not required. For application to storage systems, such samples may find use with dynamic refreshing or readout at long wavelengths or with low intensities.