Making of a nonlinear optical cavity

Abstract

ABSTRACT:In the article we explain in detail how to build a photorefractive oscillator (PRO), which is a laserpumped nonlinear optical cavity containing a photorefractive crystal. The specific PRO whose construction we describe systematically, is based on a Fabry-Perot optical cavity working in a nondegenerate four wave-mixing configuration. This particular PRO has the property that the generated beam exhibits laser-like phase invariance and, as an application, we show how a suitably modulated injected beam converts the output field from phase-invariant into phase-bistable. While the emphasis is made on the making of the experimental device and on the way measurements are implemented, some introduction to the photorefractive effect as well as to the necessary concepts of nonlinear dynamics are also given, so that the article is reasonably self-contained. Key words: Photorefractive effect, wave mixing, nonlinear optics, optical resonator, patterns, bistability. RESUMEN:En este trabajo explicamos detalladamente cómo construir un oscilador fotorrefractivo (PRO), que es una cavidad óptica bombeada con láser que contiene un cristal fotorrefractivo. El PRO concreto cuya construcción es descrita paso a paso, está basado en una cavidad óptica lineal (tipo Fabry-Perot) funcionando en una configuración de mezcla no degenerada de cuatro ondas. Este PRO particular tiene la propiedad de que el haz generado exhibe emisión laser con invariancia de fase y, como aplicación, mostramos cómo un haz inyectado y modulado adecuadamente convierte el campo de salida con invariancia de fase en uno con biestabilidad de fase. Aunque se ha hecho énfasis en cómo configurar el dispositivo experimental y en cómo realizar las medidas, se incluye una introducción al efecto fotorrefractivo así como a los conceptos necesarios de dinámica no lineal, resultando un trabajo razonablemente auto contenido.Palabras clave: Efecto fotorrefractivo, mezcla de ondas, óptica no lineal, resonador óptico, patrones, biestabilidad. [53] V.V. Yaparov, and V.B. Taranenko, "Moving domain walls with Néel defects in optical oscillator," Ukr. REFERENCES AND LINKS / REFERENCIAS Y ENLACES

Photorefractive four-wave mixing cannot be treated perturbatively. Revisiting the undepleted-pump approximation

“…We have tested experimentally the above predictions by using a degenerate four-wave mixing photorefractive oscillator very similar to that described in [7], where all technical aspects are described in detail. Our experimental results are shown in the video accompanying this paper, see figure 2.…”

“…Photorefractive oscillators, in both two-wave and four-wave mixing (degenerate as well as non-degenerate) configurations, have been heavily used as nonlinear optical cavities for the study of nonlinear dynamics, both theoretically and experimentally [3,6,7]. However, in these studies, there is a striking difference between two-wave mixing and four-wave mixing; mean-field models have been derived only for the former [8][9][10][11], never for the latter.…”