Simulation of erasure of photoinduced anisotropy by circularly polarized light

The temporal evolution of photoinduced birefringence is investigated on the basis of a model proposed by Pedersen and co-workers, This model is extended for the case of elliptically polarized light, and used to describe the erasure of photoinduced birefringence by circularly polarized light. It is shown that the anisotropy is not erased, only the direction of the optical axis is changed, and this is measured as erasure. The computed results are compared with measurements and show good agreement for several intensities.