ABSTItACrII. A novel nonhinear• polarimetric technique based on a vector interaction of polarization-modulated optical waves and heterodyne detection of nonlinear change of optical polarization is described and discussed. The technique is demonstrated as an accurate and sensitive spectroscopic tool for investigation of the nonlinear processes in light-transducing biopolymers like rhodopsins and chiorophylls.
LINTII,ODUCTIONThe two-wave-mixing (TWM) techniques seem to be the most simple and universal for the measuring laser beam characteristics and third-order nonlinear parameters and processes.They are based on the nondegenerate nonlinear interaction 1eadin to the transformation of interacting waves. The known TWM metroloic techniques can be divided into two groups: the coherent nondegenerate_frequencyl-6 and incoherent nondegenerate-polarization7l6 TWM techniques. Note that at degenerate TWM interaction (when both waves have the same frequency, amplitude and polarization) in third-order nonlinear medium there is no wave transformation in spite of dynamic grating is induced, which is in phase with interference pattern. At a coherent nondegenerate-frequency TWM interaction the interference pattern and induced grating are shifted in space domain leading to the nonlinear amplitude transformation of interacting waves. The nonlinear amplitude spectroscopic techniques can be applied to any nonlinear medium even to that with isotropic photoresponse. One more advantage of these techniques is their dependence on the period of the induced grating which enables to investigate nonlocal processes like diffusion. At a incoherent nondegenerate-polarization TWM interaction the nonlinear polarization transformation occurs because of induced anisotropy. These techniques have been applied to the spectroscopic investigation of nonlinear media with anisotropic photoresponse . Their main advantages are high accuracy and sensitivity. This paper describes a novel nondegenerate-.polarization TWM technique called the nonlinear polarization-modulated ellipsornetry which combines the advantages of mentioned above approaches. It is based on nonlinear polarization transformation at both coherentt720 and n716 vector TWM interaction. The analysis of spectroscopic aspect of vector TWM interaction in isotropic medium with both isotropic and anisotropic photoresponse is carried out employing coupled-wave formalism. The change of polarization state (amplitudes of orthogonal components and phase difference between them) of interacting waves is measured using heterodyne detection technique. The nonlinear polarization-modulated ellipsometry is used for investigation the nonlinearity of materials based on bacteriorhodopsin,2122 namely, the water suspensions and polymer films.
SPECTFLOSCOP1C ASPECT OF VECTOR TWM IN ISOTROPIC MEDIAIt is well known that a strong interaction of optical waves in nonlinear media leads to wave distortions and instabilities. This restricts its spectroscopic abilities and therefore in further we consider a weak nonlinear intera...