Optical Polarization Driven Giant Relief Modulation in Amorphous Chalcogenide Glasses

We report on the observation of giant relief modulation in amorphous chalcogenide ${\mathrm{A}\mathrm{s}}_2{\mathrm{S}}_3$ glass under polarization modulated near band gap light illumination. We show that these periodic modulations are created as a result of the photoinduced mass transport despite the very low and uniform intensity light illumination. A phenomenological model, based on a photoinduced alignment of anisotropic microvolumes within the glass, is proposed to explain the phenomenon.