Coherence and Efficiency in Nonlinear Optical Processes

A remarkable difference between linear and nonlinear processes lies in the fact that the efficiency of the latter depends on the coherence properties of the electromagnetic field (pump) from which the process is driven

Nonlinear optical propagation in near-transition centrosymmetric photorefractive crystals

We relate on a series of optical nonlinear propagation phenomena, mediated by photorefraction, present in ferroelectric crystals heated above the Curie point, in proximity of the critical regime. In particular, we discuss centrosymmetric screening solitons, diffusion-driven anisotropic nonlinear diffraction, ellipticity locking, diffusion-driven solitons, and spatial beam head-on collisions

Self-focusing and self-trapping in unbiased centrosymmetric photorefractive media

We predict self-focusing and self-trapping of optical beams propagating in unbiased centrosymmetric photorefractive crystals in the near-transition paraelectric phase, where the nonlinear response is proportional to the square of the diffusion space-charge field. (C) 1998 Optical Society of America

Nonlinear optical diffraction effects and solitons due to anisotropic charge-diffusion based self-interaction

We report the first observation of self-modified optical diffraction, beam ellipticity recovery and conservation, and intensity independent self-focusing in an anisotropic diffusion-type nonlinearity realized in ferroelectrics heated above the centrosymmetric transition. The interaction, a photorefractive diffusion-driven quadratic nonlinearity, constitutes the first known natural realization of a higher-order logarithmic nonlinearity and allows an analytical description of the observed phenomena and the prediction of a class of noncircular solitons with no characteristic length scale