In this work, the exact result of the problem of four-wave mixing in resonant absorbing media has been obtained. The effects of the degenerate four-wave mixing in the Nd3+: glass were calculated, the theoretical results agree well with the experimental measurement.
A theory of degenerate four-wave mixing in absorbing media is developed in terms of a general nonlinear susceptibility. The predictions of the theory are examined in both high and low reflectivity regimes and the specific nonlinearity-inducing mechanisms of thermally induced refractive index changes, the Kerr effect, and saturable absorption are considered. Such a theory is of particular relevance to degenerate four-wave mixing experiments in the ultraviolet and the predictions of the theory are compared with results obtained from such experiments.
The phase-conjugate reflectivity attainable by degenerate four-wave mixing in an idealized saturable absorbing medium is calculated for arbitrary values of the laser intensity, laser frequency, and absorption path-length of the nonlinear medium. The influence of pump-wave absorption, including saturation and standing-wave effects, is included in the theory. The treatment is based on an analytic expression for the intensity distribution of the counterpropagating waves. The theoretical predictions differ substantially from those based on theories that ignore pump absorption effects. The results of the present calculation are used to predict the minimum laser intensity, absorption path-length, and detuning required to obtain unit reflectivity and self-oscillation.
We show that four-wave mixing in optically dense media is very different than in an optically thin medium. In time-resolved degenerate four-wave mixing we experimentally observe ``negative'' time delay response, fast decay rates at short delay times, and broad shoulders at long delays. The observations are explained very well in terms of pulse propagation effects, and a theoretical framework is presented for the analysis of the nonlinear interaction. We treat both the incident and generated fields self-consistently, and solve for the interaction of short pulses with a resonantly absorbing medium. The implications for the extraction of relaxation rates from four-wave-mixing experiments involving ultrashort pulses in optically dense matter are discussed.