Abstract
Optical phase conjugation plays important roles in many optical systems that require the generation of a time-reversed replica of an incident electromagnetic wave.1 The fidelity of phase conjugation is an essential parameter in such systems. To improve the performance of phase conjugators, it is essential to understand the noise sources in the process of phase conjugation. Quantum noise resulting from the vacuum fluctuation of the electromagnetic field is one of the fundamental noises. Previous works have pointed out the intrinsic nature of the quantum noise.2 However, the physical origin has never been explained. Here, we present a full quantum-mechanical theory of four-wave mixing (FWM). We explain the quantum noise in terms of spontaneous scattering of multiple photons and interpret the phase conjugation in terms of stimulated scattering from the probe beam.
© 1992 Optical Society of America
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