Abstract

When intense radiation (pumping) passes through a resonant medium, a change in polarization of another (probe) beam can take place. A pump wave induces optical anisotropy in an initially isotropic medium, which leads to dichroism and birefringence. Many papers have been concerned with the effect of resonant changes of the probe polarization slate; however, in most of these papers the authors have been limited by simplified cases with linearly or circularly polarized interacting beams.

© 1994 Optical Society of America