Bistability control by forward pump beam in photorefractive four-wave mixing

Abstract

A typical method of generating phase conjugate light using photorefractive crystals is four-wave mixing. It is known that the phase conjugate reflectivity is multivalued in a steady state. In this paper, a time domain response analysis of four-wave mixing is carried out and the method for controlling the bistability of the phase conjugate reflectivity is described. First, a steady-state analysis of the four-wave mixing is carried out and the condition is derived for bistability of the phase conjugate reflectivity. Next, by using two different initial conditions, the time response analysis is carried out for the four-wave mixing. Under one of the conditions, no forward pump beam is incident before and after observation of the bistability for measurement of phase conjugate reflectivity. Under another condition, the forward pump is incident before observation of the bistability. The phase conjugate reflectivity is measured after this pump is cut off when a steady state is reached. For each case, the numerical calculations are carried out. It is shown for the first time that the bistability of the phase conjugate reflectivity can be controlled by the initial condition. Further, the temporal and spatial variations of the diffraction grating generated in the crystal are studied and the process of the phase conjugate reflectivity to exhibit bistability is clarified. © 1998 Scripta Technica, Electron Comm Jpn Pt 2, 81(2): 1–8, 1998