Forward multibeam mixing in diffusion-driven photorefractive media

Multibeam mixing in diffusion-driven media is presented as a diagnostic for the study of nonplane wave photorefractive interactions based on the premise that a complex wavefront can be analyzed as the superposition of many plane waves. Coupled-nonlinear differential equations which describe the interactions of the intensities as they couple through the medium are derived. These equations were numerically solved using a Runge-Kutta algorithm to gain insight as to how the beams interact in the medium. Three beam interactions was experimentally studied in BaTiO/sub 3/ at 514.5 nm to verify the analysis. Results indicate that phase aberrations affect intensity distributions in the enhanced beam.<
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