BASIC TRANSVERSE DYNAMICS OF A PHOTOREFRACTIVE OSCILLATOR

The basic phenomena of transverse dynamics of a two-wave mixing photor efractive oscillator (PRO) in the weakly multimode case are considered . The evolution of the transverse patterns as a function of two contro l parameters, namely, the cavity length and the PRO gain, is investiga ted. The behavior is described in terms of the modes of the empty cavi ty. It is found that the mode interactions occur differently, dependin g on whether the modes belong to the same frequency-degenerate family or not, although in both cases the observed behavior is periodic.