Abstract

Amplification of specific spatial frequency components in a given image has been successfully achieved in photorefractive media.¹ However, amplification of the complete image achieved by amplifying a full complement of frequency components in the Fourier plane has not been explored in depth except in dye lasers and in Raman amplifiers.² In this paper, we show that amplifying the transform of the image in the Fourier plane in a photorefractive medium can enable uniform amplification of images at signal levels that are lower than those previously reported. The lower intensity regime is of specific interest in the study of noise mechanisms in the photorefractive amplification process. At very low light levels, the results indicate that observed gain depends on intensity in both Fourier and direct image amplification techniques.

© 1994 Optical Society of America