Intensity-dependent thresholding and switching in the photorefractive bridge mutually pumped phase conjugator

Abstract

Beam-intensity-ratio-dependent effects have previously been observed in several photorefractive mixing configurations. Here we report the observation of total input-intensity-dependent effects in the bridge mutually pumped phase conjugator, which results in optical thresholding and switching behavior. The cause of these effects is attributed to competition between bridge conjugation and self-pumped phase conjugation that results from different exponents in their measured intensity-dependent response times (10-90%), namely, tau(bridge) alpha I(-0.79) and tau(SPPC) alpha I(-0.38).