EXPERIMENTAL DEMONSTRATION OF THE HOLOGRAPHIC INCOHERENT-ERASURE JOINT-TRANSFORM CORRELATOR

We report the first experimental realization of the incoherent-erasure joint-transform correlator operating on the erasure nonlinearities of degenerate four-wave mixing in a real-time holographic medium, Our ex periment used the joint-transform spectrum produced on a shorter-wavel ength laser beam to erase a longer-wavelength four-wave mixing hologra m in Bi12GeO20. We demonstrate a transition from matched-filter correl ation to phase-extraction correlation by increasing the erasure beam i ntensity, in quantitative agreement with the weak-coupling photorefrac tive model and simulation results. (C) 1997 society of Photo-Optical I nstrumentation Engineers.