Abstract

One of the most spectacular achievements in the field of photorefractive nonlinear optics is a practical demonstration of a family of self-pumped fourwave mixing geometries (see e.g. [1,2]) such as the double phase conjugate mirror (DPCM), the passive ring oscillator, the semilinear mirror, the family of mutual conjugators [3-6] that are interpreted on the basis of the system of two coupled DPCMs and the total internal reflection (TIR) conjugator (the "cat" mirror). Despite the fact that operation of these geometries is genetically connected with the effect of asymmetric light-induced scattering (fanning), up to recently it was completely ignored in the theoretical analysis. We present results of recent theoretical and experimental investigations that reveal influence of fanning on the operation of self-pumped FWM geometries and show how fanning in a number of cases determines both their dynamics and final stationary states.

© 1992 Optical Society of America