All optical logic and switching is one of the key issues of optical computing and addressing. This paper proposes a low power switching technology with which switching can be achieved with optical powers on the scale of a few mW/cm2. This can be achieved by using a sensitive optical nonlinearity: the photorefractive effect. The drawback of the photorefractive effect sensitivity being its slow time response, this paper shows that this can be worked around by founding the switching technology on the transient photorefractive state rather than on its slow steady state.