Abstract

Phase conjugate resonators (PCR) are optical resonators in which (at least) one of the mirrors is a phase-conjugate one (PCM), e.g. a four-wave mixing cell. These systems are of considerable experimental and theoretical interest, specially in view of their potential to eliminate phase distorsions within the resonator¹. In recent work², we discussed a PCR consisting of a Fabry-Perot resonator with one end mirror replaced by a lossless Kerr medium of infinitely fast response time pumped by two counterpropagating beams of same frequency. We described the PCM within the Raman-Nath approximation³, but including fully the effects of pump depletion. The normal mirror was positioned such as to couple the first order scattered field back into the PCM. We found that this system can break into self-oscillations corresponding to the half-axial modes predicted by linear theories^1,4. For higher pump intensities, this is followed by a sequence of bifurcations to chaos, with in general the coexistence of several basins of attraction. We also showed⁵ that the first of this sequence of bifurcations is in general already sufficient to induce a quasi-periodic motion of the intracavity field phase, leading in practice to its complete indetermination.

© 1985 Optical Society of America