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Optics Letters

Noise in χ^(3) and photorefractive amplifiers

Shmuel Sternklar, Yaakov Glick

Published Dec 1, 1995• 5 citations

Abstract

A comparison of the noise characteristics of χ(3) and photorefractive coherent amplifiers reveals basic differences in their dependence on operating parameters. Unlike all types of χ(3) amplifiers, which are shown to have a well-defined optimum working point in the region of the self-stimulated scattering threshold, the photorefractive amplifier can be made increasingly quieter by lowering the pump power. This is demonstrated by use of highly doped Co:BaTiO3 in a tight-focus reflection grating geometry. It is shown that scattering from inhomogeneities in the crystal is the major limiting noise source and is significantly higher than predictions resulting from fundamental considerations such as random space-charge noise. An extremely high small-signal gain of 107 was measured with this crystal and geometry. To our knowledge this is the highest photorefractive gain reported to date.

DOI: 10.1364/ol.20.002369

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A comparison of the noise characteristics of χ(3) and photorefractive coherent amplifiers reveals basic differences in their dependence on operating parameters. Unlike all types of χ(3) amplifiers, which are shown to have a well-defined optimum working point in the region of the self-stimulated scattering threshold, the photorefractive amplifier can be made increasingly quieter by lowering the pump power. This is demonstrated by use of highly doped Co:BaTiO3 in a tight-focus reflection grating geometry. It is shown that scattering from inhomogeneities in the crystal is the major limiting noise source and is significantly higher than predictions resulting from fundamental considerations such as random space-charge noise. An extremely high small-signal gain of 107 was measured with this crystal and geometry. To our knowledge this is the highest photorefractive gain reported to date.

When a weak optical signal is injected in a photorefractive crystal illuminated with a strong pump beam, it experiences gain via a two-wave mixing process.(1) A problem common to these amplifiers is the presence of noise sources that corrupt the quality of the emerging amplified optical signal. We propose and experimentally demonstrate the first technique, to our knowledge, capable of very significantly reducing the optical noise while maintaining high gain coefficients. Consider two-wave mixing in a slowly rotating crystal. First, we estimate the influence of a crystal rotation (angular velocity Ω around the point O) on the noise intensity in the output plane (Fig. 1a). A noise source located around point A radiates a complex wavefront whose component along the direction of the injected signal is represented by a plane wave of intensity IN (A is a crystal imperfection or interface). It is essential to note that the noise sources are bounded to the crystal and will consequently move with it. This is the basis for the process of discrimination between the noise gratings and the injected signal grating. In the Ox coordinate bounded to the rotating crystal, the interference pattern responsible for the formation of a noise grating around the point A is given by: IN(x,t) = I0 [1 + mN cos KN(t)x], where KN(t) ~ 2π(θ + Ωt)/λ is the time-dependent grating wave vector (we have assumed that the angles inside the crystal are small), I0 is the total incident intensity (I0 ~ IP0), θ is the angle between the beams inside the crystal, λ = λ0/n is the optical wavelength in the crystal with refractive index n, and mN is the fringe modulation.

The buildup and the decay of photorefractive two-beam coupling are experimentally demonstrated to be strongly dependent on the intensity ratio of the two beams (signal-to-pump ratio). The experiment, done with a BaTiO3 crystal, shows good agreement with the theory of two-beam coupling in the depleted-pump regime. The deviation of the response behavior from the small-signal regime is seen for ratios as small as ∼10−5. These results are significant for applications of two-beam coupling as gain media, especially for the elimination of amplified noise (fanning).