DETERMINATION OF NONLINEAR SUSCEPTIBILITIES BY TRANSFORMING RANDOM-VARIABLES

High-peak-power lasers are typically used as pump sources in nonlinear optical measurements. Intrinsic to these sources are pulse-to-pulse o utput energy instabilities. We report on how pump instabilities affect the measurement of nonlinear susceptabilites and develop theory which relates statistical parameters of a general, arbitrary pump energy pr obability distribution to those of its corresponding mth harmonic outp ut. The relation leads to a simple method of data analysis whereby pum p instabilities can be used as a tool in determining the nonlinear sus ceptibility of a material. (C) 1996 American Institute of Physics.