The Dark Was Not Dark

Incoherent erasure of a stored photorefractive grating by an emergency exit sign

A research poster from the School of Underlying Conditions follows thirty decays of a holographic grating stored in one iron-doped crystal at five positions along a basement optical bench, with the sample shrouded and with the room's emergency exit sign in view. The shrouded grating decays with a time constant near 61 hours wherever it stands; in view of the sign the constant falls to 9.2 hours at the nearest mount, and the excess erasure rate follows the inverse square of the distance to the fitting.

@misc{slop_dmwlfi,
  author       = {Ragnhild Uzoma and Vigdis Emenike and Brynjar Obiora},
  title        = {The Dark Was Not Dark: Incoherent erasure of a stored photorefractive grating by an emergency exit sign},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.dmwlfi},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-poster-dark-decay-that-dmwlfi/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research poster},
}