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Journal of Nonlinear Optical Physics & Materials

OPTICAL PHASE-CONJUGATION IN ATOMIC VAPORS

G. Grynberg

Published Jan 1, 1993• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We present a brief review of optical phase conjugation by four-wave mixing in atomic vapors. We emphasize the particular properties of vapors for this process. We discuss the case of nearly resonant excitation for two-level atoms, the case of multilevel atoms where the nonlinearity arises from optical pumping and the nearly resonant two-photon excitation. We finally describe the modification of phase-conjugate signals when one goes from the Bragg regime to the Raman-Nath regime and we show how one can achieve a phase-contrast mirror rather than a phase-conjugate mirror in this last case.

DOI
10.1142/s0218199193000061

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We present a brief review of optical phase conjugation by four-wave mixing in atomic vapors. We emphasize the particular properties of vapors for this process. We discuss the case of nearly resonant excitation for two-level atoms, the case of multilevel atoms where the nonlinearity arises from optical pumping and the nearly resonant two-photon excitation. We finally describe the modification of phase-conjugate signals when one goes from the Bragg regime to the Raman-Nath regime and we show how one can achieve a phase-contrast mirror rather than a phase-conjugate mirror in this last case.
We present a theoretical investigation of optical phase conjugation by use of nearly degenerate four-wave mixing in a two-level atomic system. The description is based on the semiclassical dressed-state approach, which offers a very transparent picture of the physics involved in the nonlinear process. The theory provides an explanation in terms of a quantum interference between two channels for the strong reduction of the optical phase-conjugate yield when the pump fields are tuned to the atomic resonance. In addition, the model predicts an efficient generation of the optical phase conjugate if the system is prepared in a pure dressed state.
It is often desirable that a phase conjugate mirror be able to correct for polarization distortions in addition to correcting for wavefront aberrations. Such a device is called a vector phase conjugate mirror. It has been predicted within the context of the third-order theory that vector phase conjugation can be achieved by degenerate four-wave mixing using atomic two-photon transitions between S-states.1 We recently developed a theory of the polarization properties of two-photon resonantly enhanced degenerate four-wave mixing which can treat saturation effects due to pump waves.2 Our results show that for the case of linear and parallel pump wave polarizations, vector phase conjugation occurs with high quality and high reflectivity for two-photon transitions for which the nonresonant Stark shift is very small. We have also found that for the case of circular and counterrotating pump wave polarizations, perfect vector phase conjugation occurs for equal pump wave intensities. We have studied experimentally the effects of saturation and Stark shifts for S → S two-photon transitions of atomic sodium. We have found that high fidelity vector phase conjugation can be obtained.
Summary form only given.The present summary reports about a dressed-state approach to optical phase conjugation (OPC) by resonant nearly degenerate four-wave mixing in vapors. The basic idea is to decouple the pump fields from the probe field by first treating the problem of the pump fields interacting with the atom and then consider the interaction with the probe field. From this model, the dip, observed in the OPC yield when the pump fields are tuned to an atomic resonance, can be interpreted as an interference effect between contributions to the polarization originating from two dressed-state transitions.
The use of resonantly enhanced four-wave mixing to generate high reflectivity phase-conjugate waves is discussed. A physical understanding of the mechanisms underlying the nonlinear response for a simple two-level system is presented followed by a discussion of the complicating effects of pump absorption, pump depletion, unbalanced pumps, and thermal motion. Modifications of the theory to describe four-level behavior are presented and compared with experiments. The application of nearly degenerate four-wave mixing to narrow-band filtering complicated by the A. C. Stark effect is dis-cussed along with examples of experimental observations.
Recently, level degeneracy effects have been considered in phase conjugation (PC) through resonant degenerate four-wave mixing with special attention paid to sublevel coherences in atomic ground states.1,2 We report on detailed studies on usual and intracavity PC in atomic Na vapor (D1 line) using ground-state depopulation pumping and Zeeman coherences as a versatile nonlinear mechanism. Our measurements are found to be in good agreement with the results of a simple analytic nonperturbative treatment for a homogeneously broadened coupled four-level system.