Levine, Z.
(2024),
A Proposed Experiment to Measure Nonlinear Optical Susceptibilities in the Saturated Regime, Physical Review A, [online], https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.110.023501, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=957952 (Accessed May 10, 2026)
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A Proposed Experiment to Measure Nonlinear Optical Susceptibilities in the Saturated Regime
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Abstract
When an optical beam passes through a thin slice of a homogeneous material, the change of its phase and amplitude is characterized by its linear and nonlinear susceptibility, the latter also known as the hyperpolarizability. The standard method for measuring the nonlinear susceptibility is the $Z$-scan. This widely-used method is sometimes applied outside of its range of validity, leading to systematic errors. These errors are illustrated for a two-level system with parameters taken from atomic rubidium. The present work proposes a new method called the Phase Retrieval Of Modes (PROM) to determine the nonlinear susceptibility without an assumption about its functional form, in contrast to both the $Z$-scan method and variants intended to apply in cases of saturation. The nearly exact recovery of the nonlinear susceptibility is shown numerically in the no-noise case. Additionally, two types of noise are considered: shot noise on the detector and intensity fluctuations of the input. The proposed experiment can greatly reduce systematic errors in the measurement of optical nonlinear susceptibilities using techniques widely available in optical research laboratories.Citation
Physical Review A
Volume
110
Issue
2
Pub Type
Journals
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Created August 1, 2024