Optical parametric amplification beyond the slowly varying amplitude approximation

Abstract

The coupled-wave equations describing optical parametric amplification (OPA) are usually solved in the slowly varying amplitude (SVA) approximation regime, in which the second-order derivatives of the signal and idler amplitudes are ignored and in fact the electromagnetic effects due to exit face of the medium is not involved. Here, an analytical plane-wave solution of these coupled-wave equations in a non-absorbing medium is presented. The solutions are derived beyond the SVA approximation up to order of κ/k (coupling constant over the wave number). The intensity distributions of the signal and the idler waves show a periodic behavior about their corresponding distributions of SVA-adapted solution. This behavior can be explained by the interference of the forward propagating signal (idler) wave and the corresponding backward one resulted from the reflection by the end face of the medium. Furthermore, this interference pattern in the medium can in turn serve as a periodic source for the next generations of the signal and idler waves. Therefore, the superposition of the waves, generated from different points of this periodic source, at the exit face of the medium shows an oscillatory behavior of the transmitted signal (idler) wave in terms of normalized coupling constant, κL. This study also shows that this effect is more considerable for high intensity pump beam, high relative refractive index and short length of the nonlinear medium.