Piezobirefringence effect in GaAs disks subjected to diametrical compression

Abstract
In this communication, the simulated piezobirefringent images for a diametrically compressed GaAs disk are compared with those obtained experimentally. The values of the piezo-optic coefficients used in these simulations are derived from the elasto-optic coefficients and the stiffness constants for GaAs. The behavior of the stress-optic coefficient C for GaAs is also investigated. For (100)-oriented GaAs, the calculated value of C is found to vary with position for a given load and also found to depend on the orientation of the loading axis with respect to the principal crystal direction chosen to be 〈010〉 in this work. The calculated values of C for this case range from 0.8 to 2.6×10−12 cm2 /dyn. However, for (111)-oriented GaAs, no such dependence is observed and C is a constant with a calculated value of 1.94×10−12 cm2 /dyn.