Spontaneous Oscillation and Self-Pumped Phase Conjugation in a Photorefractive Polymer Optical Amplifier
A. Grunnet-Jepsen,
C. L. Thompson,
W. E. Moerner
Optical processing with photorefractive polymers depends on
achieving high optical gain, which depends exponentially on the product
of the interaction length and the gain coefficient. By use of several
polymer layers to increase the overall interaction length and a new
high-performance photorefractive polymer composite, the overall optical
one-pass gain becomes as large as a factor of 5. For a two-layer sample
placed in an optical cavity made with two concave mirrors, spontaneous
oscillation due to two-beam coupling gain was observed. Because only
one pumping beam is required, this configuration also acts as a
self-pumped phase-conjugating mirror with a reflectivity of 13 percent
for an applied electric field of 75 volts per micrometer, marking a
milestone for this growing class of optoelectronic materials.
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, San
Diego, CA 92093-0340, USA.
