Mutually pumped phase conjugator: ray configuration

Abstract

ABSTRACT We have discovered for mutually pumped phase conjugator (MPPC) with a novel configuration in a 0°-cutnominally undoped photorefractive BaTiO3 crystal which phase conjugates two mutually incoherent beamssimultaneously. Both beams incident +c face of the crystal make a non-zero obtuse angle to the crystal's +c axis,respectively. This leads to an effective mutual coupling as two fans emanating from the input beams have alarge interaction region. This novel MPPC exhibits phase conjugation with three internal reflections and isremarkably insensitive to angular and lateral positional changes of the two input beams. We refer to this phaseconjugator as ray of mutually pumped phase conjugator (Ray-MPPC). The temporal response, positional andangular acceptance, and the variations of the phase-conjugate reflectivity with input beam power ratio have alsobeen determined. These characteristics make this mutually pumped phase conjugator particularly interesting forpractical applications such as for injection locking lasers and for optical free space communications.KEYWORDS: laser coupling, phase conjugation, mutually pumped phase conjugation, BaTiO3, photorefractives.