COMPETITION OF RESONATING BEAMLETS USING MULTIPLE 2-WAVE MIXING IN SATURABLE-GAIN MEDIA

A model of codirectional three-wave mixing in saturable-gain media is developed to extend previous studies of two-wave mixing, and to numeri cally analyze multi-beamlet competition when feedback is included. ''W inner-takes-all'' dynamics is predicted by simulations in a time scale one million times faster than for photorefractive materials. The dyna mics are found to be governed by the gain coefficient of the incoheren tly pumped medium, the number of beamlets, and their initial energy fl uence. An amplifier-based optical associative memory is foreseen. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.