Abstract

There is considerable interest in the giant nonlinear refraction obtained in indium antimonide with low-power (milliwatt) lasers operating at frequencies that are near resonant with the fundamental band gap of the material. Values of as high as 1 esu have been reported¹ and are in marked contrast to the values of χ⁽³⁾~5 × 10⁻⁹ esu reported for nonresonant conditions.² The present work is concerned with the near-resonant region and utilizes frequency differences of ~4 cm⁻¹ between the incident laser beams. We present the first reported observation of cw nondegenerate four-wave mixing in InSb, and a typical trace is shown in Fig. WFF2-1. This result was obtained by the use of a novel Raman amplifier³ prealignment technique.

© 1984 Optical Society of America