Physical Review Letters
Optical amplification and polarization switching in a birefringent nonlinear optical medium: An analysis
I. C. Khoo
Abstract
In birefringent nonlinear optical media, it is shown that phase-matched wave-mixing processes occur naturally among the extraordinary and ordinary wave components of a strong pump and a weak probe beam. The necessary and sufficient conditions that these parametric processes may lead to amplification and or polarization switching of the probe beam are quantitatively analyzed.