Boundary conditions for optical rectification and application to degenerate four-wave mixing in a novel geometry

摘要

We derive general boundary conditions for optical rectification of Gaussian beams and discuss the effect on cascaded optical rectification and the linear electro-optic effect as well as terahertz generation. These conditions are applied to degenerate four-wave mixing in a novel geometry in which we experimentally demonstrate, for the first time to our knowledge, that the combination of optical rectification of a single pump beam and the linear electro-optic effect produces a refractive-index grating in the transparent spectral region of the inorganic crystal KNbO3. The intensity of a probe beam diffracted by this grating was determined and corresponds to the theoretically expected result obtained from the known material parameters. (C) 2001 Optical Society of America. [References: 13]