SPATIAL SEPARATION OF CIRCULARLY-POLARIZED LASER-BEAMS IN SODIUM VAPOR

Citation
B. Rohricht et al., SPATIAL SEPARATION OF CIRCULARLY-POLARIZED LASER-BEAMS IN SODIUM VAPOR, Optics communications, 118(5-6), 1995, pp. 601-606
Citations number
20
Categorie Soggetti
Optics
Journal title
ISSN journal
00304018
Volume
118
Issue
5-6
Year of publication
1995
Pages
601 - 606
Database
ISI
SICI code
0030-4018(1995)118:5-6<601:SSOCLI>2.0.ZU;2-7
Abstract
We observed experimentally that a superposition of two co-propagating left and right hand circularly polarized laser beams is spatially unst able during propagation through a vapor of sodium atoms containing arg on buffer gas. A small spatial asymmetry between the two input beams l eads to their separation into two pure circularly polarized output bea ms. However a single linearly polarized input beam was found to be spa tially stable. Our theoretical results from Maxwell-Bloch propagation calculations using both modal expansion and direct partial differentia l equation solution methods are in good agreement with the experiments . The splitting mechanism can be explained in simple terms as consisti ng of an absorption and dispersion dominated initial part and a diffra ction dominated final part.