Applications of nonlinear optics

The use of adaptive optics to improve the seeing of large astronomical telescopes has been of great interest to the scientific community. The adaptive optics concept that is currently being pursued involves the use of complex deformable mirrors, high speed wavefront sensors, and sophisticated control electronics. These systems are expensive, generally beyond the reach of the average scientist. Phase conjugation techniques have the potential to replace this complex hardware with a single optical element. In addition several other nonlinear processes have relevant applications such as low noise optical amplifiers.<
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