Nonperturbative Analysis of Optical Double Resonance with Application to Phase Conjugation

Philip Hemmer, M. S. Shahriar, D. P. Katz +3 more

Philippe Delaye, Andrei A. Fotiadi, Gérald Roosen

Govind Prasad Agrawal

The effect of Zeeman coherence on phase conjugation is investigated in the saturation regime by using a nonperturbative analysis of resonant degenerate four-wave mixing with orthogonally polarized pump beams in a A-type homogeneously broadened three-level system. The dependence of the phase-conjugation efficiency on phase-interrupting collisions and pump imbalance is particularly studied. Significant phase-conjugate reflectivities can be obtained at pump intensities much below those required for a two-level system.

Pavel A Apanasevich, V. A. Khodovoǐ

Gilmore J. Dunning, Juan Francisco Lam

Current experimental studies of degenerate four-wave mixing in saturable absorbers1,2 have shown that the dependence of the reflectivity on the pump intensity exhibits a double maxima. This phenomenon can arise from the fact that the medium approximates a set of four-level quantum systems. We have carried out a detailed analysis of the nonlinear processes of degenerate four-wave mixing in a four-level system. Because resonant saturable absorbers are being considered for systems applications, e.g., optical phase conjugation and wide FOV filters, the results presented are relevant to various optical phase conjugation devices. There are two distinct regimes which are of interest. The first case is when the intramolecular relaxation is very weak or absent. The second is when the intramolecular relaxation is strong. For the weak case the medium behaves like a set of two distinct dipole radiation sources which can generate interference effects.

J. Mlynek, E. Köster, Jurgen Kolbe +1 more

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.