Theory of a self-pumped phase conjugator with two coupled interaction regions

Abstract

We present a plane-wave analysis of a recently demonstrated self-pumped phase conjugator. This device uses four-wave mixing to produce the phase-conjugate replica of an incident optical wave. All the waves are derived from the single incident wave: there are no externally supplied pumping beams. We consider the case of four-wave mixing in two interaction regions coupled by simple reflection. We calculate the phase-conjugate reflectivity as a function of coupling strength, taking into account imperfect coupling between the two interaction regions, and show that there is a threshold coupling strength below which the reflectivity is zero and above which the reflectivity is multiple valued. We also compute the coupling strength per unit length for a photorefractive crystal of barium titanate.