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Chinese Physics Letters

Group Velocity Reduction of Light Pulses in Photorefractive Two-Wave Mixing

Guoquan Zhang, Rong Dong, Jingjun Xu

Published Sep 24, 2003• 14 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We show theoretically that the group velocity of light pulses can be reduced significantly by use of the steep dispersion properties of the phase coupling effect in the photorefractive two-wave mixing process. The group velocity of light pulses of the order of 0.1 m/s can be achieved in typical photorefractive BSO crystals with an appropriate externally applied electric field and moving gratings of appropriate speeds. It is also shown that the slowly propagating light pulses can be set to be amplified after passing through the photorefractive material.

DOI
10.1088/0256-307x/20/10/320

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We show theoretically that the group velocity of light pulses can be reduced significantly by use of the steep dispersion properties of the phase coupling effect in the photorefractive two-wave mixing process. The group velocity of light pulses of the order of 0.1 m/s can be achieved in typical photorefractive BSO crystals with an appropriate externally applied electric field and moving gratings of appropriate speeds. It is also shown that the slowly propagating light pulses can be set to be amplified after passing through the photorefractive material.
We show theoretically that the group velocity of light can be slowed down by means of phase coupling in the photorefractive two-wave mixing process. It is shown that the group velocity of light propagating in a photorefractive material could be significantly reduced because of a steep variation of the phase-coupling coefficient with respect to the angular frequency difference between two coupling beams in a two-wave mixing process. The results for the case of a photorefractive Bi12SiO20 crystal are presented and discussed in detail.
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We show that the group velocities of light pulses can be decelerated dramatically by the use of a dispersive phase-coupling effect through a wave mixing process. We have observed experimentally such a phase-coupling-induced ultraslow light propagation with a group velocity as low as 0.05  m/s0.05\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{m}/\mathrm{s}0.05  m/s in a photorefractive Bi12SiO20{\mathrm{B}\mathrm{i}}_{12}{\mathrm{S}\mathrm{i}\mathrm{O}}_{20}Bi12​SiO20​ crystal at room temperature. Moreover, the ultraslow light is amplified in the Bi12SiO20{\mathrm{B}\mathrm{i}}_{12}{\mathrm{S}\mathrm{i}\mathrm{O}}_{20}Bi12​SiO20​ crystal because of the unidirectional energy transfer from a coupling beam to the ultraslow light. This technique to produce ultraslow light propagation is valid for all nonlinear wave mixing processes with a dispersive phase-coupling effect.
Slow and fast light are achieved in two experiments using SPS photorefractive crystal at room temperature. We report that the photorefractive gain achieved by the two wave mixing (TWM) method can control the group velocity of the transmitted light pulses at visible wavelength. It is shown theoretically and experimentally that the time delay and the shape of the output pulse change as a function of the photorefractive gain. The beam fanning has also been used to control the velocity propagation of a single light pulse in the same crystal at λ = 1064 nm. Depending on the orientation of the polar axis, it is possible to accelerate or decelerate a short pulse with duration of order of μs in the crystal.
We demonstrated superluminal light propagation with a negative group velocity of -5.7 m/s in a photorefractive Bi 12SiO20 crystal by using the dispersive phase coupling effect in a nondegenerate two-wave mixing process. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first experimental demonstration of superluminal light propagation at room temperature in solids by using a classical wave mixing technique. In addition, we showed the tunability of the group velocity of light between the negative (superluminal light) and the positive (subluminal light) by simply tuning the experimental conditions such as the frequency of the coupling beam, the incident intensity, and the externally applied electric fields.
It has been shown recently (see, e.g., Nature, 397, 594, 1999; 409, 490, 2001) that light pulses can be remarkably slowed down in resonant gases under very low temperatures. We show theoretically and experimentally that a similar in nature (and stronger in value) phenomenon occurs in photorefractive nonlinear media. The pulse-maximum velocity can be reduced here to the value of thickness/response time because of the two wave coupling effect. Specific properties of pulse propagation depend on the type of the photorefractive response and also duration and shape of the input pulse. Our theoretical results for the nonlocal nonlinear response are in a good agreement with experimental data obtained with BaTiO3 and Sn2P2S6 crystals.