Abstract

Nonlinear optical interactions can depend in a complicated manner on the state of polarization of the incident optical waves. For the case of isotropic nonlinear optical materials, the third order nonlinear polarization is expressed in terms of two parameters A and B describing the material system and can be written as¹,² (1) where $\overrightarrow{\text{E}}$ is the total field incident upon the medium. In this paper we present the results of investigations of the polarization properties of phase conjugation by degenerate four-wave mixing (DFWM) in fluorescein-doped boric acid glass and in sodium vapor utilizing the ³S_1/2→6S_1/2 two-photon allowed transition. We find that these two materials can be used for a vector phase conjugation. Vector phase conjugation (VPC) corrects for both wavefront and polarization distortions upon double pass through an aberrating medium.³

© 1988 Optical Society of America