The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Dec. 08, 1992
Filed:
Nov. 04, 1991
Mark D Ewbank, Newbury Park, CA (US);
Rene A Vazquez, Thousand Oaks, CA (US);
Rockwell International Corporation, Seal Beach, CA (US);
Abstract
A polarization independent energy exchanger transfers optical energy from a first coherent beam of optical energy to a second coherent beam of optical energy where the second beam is coherent with respect to the first beam, the second beam is counterpropagating with respect to the first beam, and the second beam possesses substantially the same polarization as the first beam. The energy exchanger includes a nonlinear optical uniaxial crystal having electro-optic coefficients r.sub.13 and r.sub.23 of equal magnitude and having a sufficiently large photorefractive charge density to achieve efficient contradirectional two-beam coupling, independent of the polarization states of the first and second beams. The crystal is oriented to receive the first and second beams therein such that the optic axis of the crystal is aligned parallel to the propagation directions of the first and second beams. The invention also envisions a polarization-independent backscattering phase conjugator for transferring optical energy from a first coherent beam of optical energy to a second coherent beam of optical energy where the second beam is the counterpropagating phase-conjugate reflection of the first beam. In this embodiment, a nonlinear optical uniaxial is provided with electro-optic coefficients r.sub.13 and r.sub. 23 of equal magnitude and having a sufficiently large photorefractive charge density to achieve efficient phase-conjugate backscattering, indepe n