High diffraction efficiency from submicrometer-period plasma gratings in AIGaAs:Te

We describe new measurements of optical diffraction from gratings in carrier density obtained by optical ionization of DX centers in the compound-semiconductor AlGaAs. We report diffraction efficiencies as high as 40% from 390-μm thick-gratings and show that the diffraction efficiency remains above 10% for grating periods as small as 135 nm.