Slow light with degenerate backward-wave four-wave mixing

Abstract

We report on a slowing down of light pulses using degenerate backward-wave four-wave mixing in a photorefractive crystal. The delay and width of the output pulse for the amplified transmitted beam and for the phase-conjugated beam are studied as a function of the input pulse width. We demonstrate that the four-wave mixing process ensures a larger slowing down of short pulses compared to the photorefractive two-beam coupling scheme and guarantees the elimination of forerunners, which are among the principal drawbacks for slowing down of short pulses with two-beam coupling. The technique may be extended to slowing down of light with degenerate or nearly degenerate backward-wave four-wave mixing based on other types of nonlinearities.