Abstract
Photorefractive spatial solitons and their induced waveguides1 have been of great interest in recent years because of their dimensionality, wavelength sensitivity, and fixability. With these properties, they offer potential applications, some of which are truly unique2,3: reconfigurable near-field optical interconnects, three-dimensional optical circuitry4, directional coupling5,6, beam steering,7 and frequency conversion8,9. The most promising one is nonlinear frequency conversion. Since the conversion efficiency in χ(2) processes is proportional to the intensity of the pump beam, one easy way is to use a focused beam. However, in bulk, diffraction reduces the conversion efficiency, because as the beam diffracts, (1) the intensity decreases, and (2) the beams acquire quardratic phases thus the phase-matching condition cannot be satisfied across the entire beam. Therefore, using waveguides for frequency conversion can largely improve the conversion efficiency. Employing waveguides induced by photorefractive solitons not only increases the conversion efficiency but also offers flexibility, because the waveguide structure can be modified at will. For example, waveguides induced by photorefractive solitons offer much tunability: wavelength tunability in frequency conversion is achieved by rotating the crystal and launching a soliton in the new direction, or by changing the propagation constants of the guided modes by varying the intensity ratio and external voltage (without mechanical movements).
© 2002 Optical Society of America
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