Abstract

Photorefractive (PR) oscillators or self-pumped phase-conjugate mirrors (PCM) are essential parts of any envisioned device employing optical phase conjugation (OPC).¹ An especially troublesome aspect of their behaviour is inherent spatio-temporal instabilities. In this contribution we investigate the spatio-temporal dynamics of the double-phase conjugate mirror (DPCM) (Fig. 1), which is an interesting geometry for applications.² Assuming the input waves (A₂, A₄) to be mutually incoherent (no reflection gratings), the beam A₁ is phase coherent with A₄ and the beam A₃ is phase coherent with A₂. Thus, they can pairwise build a transmission-type grating, and the PC signals can be amplified at the expense of the pump (even though the pump and the probe are incoherent).

© 1994 IEEE