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Optics Letters

Self-pumped optical phase conjugation with a sodium Raman laser

J. Donoghue, J. S. Kane, Philip Hemmer, Mark Cronin‐Golomb

Published Sep 1, 1991• 11 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We report self-pumped optical phase conjugation in which the pumps are self-induced as standing waves in a linear Raman laser. Self-pumped reflectivities approaching 5% are obtained for input intensities of 20 W/cm(2). This low optical input intensity combined with predicted submicrosecond response times suggests that the resonant Raman interaction may provide the basis for a promising new class of nonlinear-optical material.

DOI
10.1364/ol.16.001313

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Optics Letters•May 1, 1995•347 citations
We report self-pumped optical phase conjugation in which the pumps are self-induced as standing waves in a linear Raman laser. Self-pumped reflectivities approaching 5% are obtained for input intensities of 20 W/cm(2). This low optical input intensity combined with predicted submicrosecond response times suggests that the resonant Raman interaction may provide the basis for a promising new class of nonlinear-optical material.
Recently, there has been increased interest in the use of resonant atomic systems for performing optical-wavefront conjugation. This interest has arisen because resonant systems are inherently fast, with response times in the nanosecond range. However, resonant systems tend to have lower efficiencies and greater optical power requirements than do photorefractive crystals, such as BaTiO3. In this paper, we explore the possibility of using a highly efficient Raman laser1 in a sodium-vapor cell to obtain efficient phase conjugation at greatly reduced optical power densities. In this demonstration we use a self-pumped (linear-cavity) conjugator for simplicity. With this setup, we have achieved phase- conjugate reflectivities of 2% with input powers of only 20 W/cm2. This is only 2% of the optical power density previously reported2 to obtain comparable reflectivity with a self-pumped scheme in sodium vapor.
We have used a two-wave mixing gain process in sodium vapor to construct a self-pumped phase conjugator. This was done by forming a resonator around a quartz sodium cell equipped with Brewster angle windows. A pump beam is then directed into the sodium cell at a small angle to the longitudinal axis of the resonator. At sufficiently high cw pump intensities, the ac-Stark effect pro- vides sufficient gain to achieve oscillation. Although this gain is unidirectional it occurs on the wings of the sodium resonance so that the backward traveling optical field in the resonator does not experience loss due to sodium absorption. The counterpropagating optical fields in the resonator interact with the pump in an internal four- wave mixing process to produce a fourth optical field (phase conjugate to the pump field). Our experiment was conducted at the sodium D2 resonance. The pump laser was a 699 autoscan single frequency ring dye laser providing pump intensities up to several hundred watts per square centimeter.