Dynamic properties of bacteriorhodopsin exposed to ultrashort light pulses.

Bacteriorhodopsin (BR) in its metastable form was used for pulsed holographic recording at lambda~400nm . It is shown that the properties of BR are insensitive to changes in the writing light's pulse width. When holograms are recorded in the BR stable form (lambda~600 nm) , the sensitivity of the medium and the diffraction efficiency of those holograms are reduced proportionally to the decrease in the light's pulse width.