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Photorefractive Effects, Materials, and Devices

Increase of mutual coherence of light beams in two-wave interaction in photorefractive crystals

Nickolai V. Bogodaev, L. I. Ivleva, A. S. Korshunov, N. M. Polozkov, Vladimir V. Shkunov

Published Jan 1, 1991• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Two-wave mixing allows one to change effectively Intensities, phases, space profiles, polarizations and time evolution of interacting beams [1,21. We will show, that two-wave mixing of partially coherent beams may be used to increase degree of coherence of these beams. The physics of the effect under discussion is as follows: two partially coherent beams write a refraction index grating in a nonlinear medium whose position and profile are practically stationary. Scattering of strong beam on this grating in the direction of the weak one means that this weak beam acquires an addition, that is coherent with the strong beam, thereby increasing degree of coherence of the beams. Similar effects were discussed in connection with scattering of different frequency components at the common running grating [3] and with Interaction of different polarization components [4,5].

DOI
10.1364/pmed.1991.mc10

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Two-wave mixing allows one to change effectively Intensities, phases, space profiles, polarizations and time evolution of interacting beams [1,21. We will show, that two-wave mixing of partially coherent beams may be used to increase degree of coherence of these beams. The physics of the effect under discussion is as follows: two partially coherent beams write a refraction index grating in a nonlinear medium whose position and profile are practically stationary. Scattering of strong beam on this grating in the direction of the weak one means that this weak beam acquires an addition, that is coherent with the strong beam, thereby increasing degree of coherence of the beams. Similar effects were discussed in connection with scattering of different frequency components at the common running grating [3] and with Interaction of different polarization components [4,5].
Two-wave mixing in photorefractive crystals has been shown to combine coherently a modulated optical signal beam with a strong pump optical field.’ For a phase-modulated signal beam, the induced index of refraction phase grating inside the crystal yields a coupling of the optical fields of the pump and signal so that subsequent intensity detection results in apparent intensity modulation of the transmitted signal or pump beams. This provides an easy way to detect phase differences between two optical beams. Some of the advantages the above scheme offers over commonly used coherent optical phase detection schemes are: no loss of 3 dB in the signal beam intensity at the 50/50 beam splitter (used to combine signal and local oscillator fields); automatic alignment of the index of refraction grating with the two incident optical wavefronts; insensitivity to slow random changes in the phases of both beams. Experimental results are given, and a new definition for the resulting mixing gain for the phase-modulated beam is introduced, through which optimal conditions for input beam intensity ratios can be found. Applications to coherent homodyne detection are discussed.
We investigate the effect of beam temporal coherence on four-wave mixing via transmission gratings in photorefractive media. We take into account the propagation of mutual coherence and self-coherence in space and the evolution of mutual coherence and self-coherence with time. Analytical solutions for nondepleted-pump cases and numerical results for general cases are obtained. We find that the mutual coherence of the signal beam and the pump beam can be enhanced or reduced, depending on the coupling constant and the beam ratio of the signal beam and the pump beam. A decrease of the initial mutual coherence can lead to a lower phase-conjugate reflectivity in the nondepleted-pump case. Even with low initial mutual coherence, high phase-conjugate reflectivity can still be obtained in the case with pump depletion. As a result of the shift of the grating profile, partial coherence can lead to an enhancement of the phase-conjugate reflectivity when the signal–pump-beam ratio is small. We also found that when the initial value of the phase-conjugate beam is zero, the phase-conjugate beam and the pump beam are in phase during propagation. Results for beam intensity and mutual coherence are presented and discussed to provide an insight into four-wave mixing with partially temporally coherent waves.
Photorefractively induced index-of-refraction phase gratings are shown to combine coherently the optical fields of a strong pump and a suitably amplitude- or phase-modulated signal beam in such a way that an apparent amplification of the modulating waveform appears as intensity modulation of the transmitted signal and pump beam intensities. The source of the signal gain is shown to be the square-law (intensity) detection of the coherently combined pump and modulated signal beams, just as in coherent optical communication systems in which a strong local-oscillator field is coherently added with a weak optical signal field by a beam splitter.
We develop a numerical method to solve the coupled-wave equations for four-wave mixing phase conjugation in a photorefractive crystal with unequal complex coupling constants; by this method we can obtain both the intensities and the phases of various beams. We discuss the intensities and the phases of the interacting beams in a photorefractive crystal for the cases in which the phase shifts between the refractive-index gratings and the interference pattern are all π/2 and in which they are not all π/2.
The effect of partial coherence on four-wave mixing in photorefractive media is studied by taking into account the evolution and propagation of the mutual coherence via a theoretical model. This model is applied to four-wave mixing and two-wave mixing with fully or partially coherent waves. We studied the effect of partial coherence with the presence of all the gratings, and compared the results with those of the transmission grating approximation and of the reflection grating approximation, respectively.