Chapter 2 - Wave-Equation Description of Nonlinear Optical Interactions

Abstract

We have seen in the last chapter how nonlinearity in the response of a material system to an intense laser field can cause the polarization of the medium to develop new frequency components not present in the incident radiation field. These new frequency components of the polarization act as sources of new frequency components of the electromagnetic field. In the present chapter, we examine how Maxwell's equations describe the generation of these new components of the field, and more generally we see how the various frequency components of the field become coupled by the nonlinear interaction.