Laser-Induced Dynamic Gratings and Four Wave Mixing-Material Investigations and Coherent Light Amplification

Abstract

The optical properties of matter become spatially modulated in the interference region of two light waves. The resulting dynamic or transient gratings decay after the inducing light source, usually a laser, has been switched off. The grating amplitude is controlled by the light intensity. Dynamic gratings have been produced in a large number of’materials, and are detected by diffraction of a probing beam or by self-diffraction of the light waves inducing the grating. The combined interference and diffraction effect corresponds to four wave mixing in the language of nonlinear optics.