Abstract

Degenerate-cross-phase-modulation is a new class of cross-phase-modulation where two or more laser pulses with the same frequency but different polarizations interact in condensed matter to produce controllable spectral and temporal changes of a weak probe pulse. This process is different from the conventional cross-phase-modulation where pump and probe pulses have different wavelengths. In some cases, such as in isotropic media, or using the modulation instability to compensate the birefringence in a medium, the phasematched degenerate-four-wave-mixing can exist in degenerate-cross-phase-modulation process. We numerically compare the results of the pulse compression and amplification of degenerate-cross-phase-modulation with and without the influence of degenerate-four-wave-mixing. In the case without the influence of degenerate-four-wave-mixing, the probe pulse has been compressed while the pulse energy remains the same as its input value. When the effect of the degenerate-four-wave-mixing is taken into consideration, the weak probe pulse is amplified as well as compressed. The amplification via degenerate-four-wave-mixing improves the effect of pulse compression. In the dual pump pulse compression case with the normalized delay between the probe and pump pulses T_d = 2, the pulse duration of the probe pulse has been reduced by a factor of 15 with the energy gain of 4.3 times.

© 1990 Optical Society of America