Abstract

Phase conjugation in a Cr⁴⁺:YAG saturable absorber by degenerate four-wave mixing with nanosecond pulses at λ = 1.06 μm is demonstrated for the first time to our knowledge. An experimental phase-conjugate energy reflectivity of ~2% and an overall efficiency of ~0.4% are achieved. Because of the presence of absorbing dipoles oriented along specific directions, it is shown that the phase-conjugated beam can be made orthogonally polarized relative to the signal beam or to both pump beams with almost no reduction of the energy reflectivity.

© 1996 Optical Society of America