Reflection of a multifrequency signal in four-wave interaction in germanium at 10.6 μ

An investigation is made of the reflection of a mulitfrequency signal in connection with wavefront reversal in four-wave interaction. When the signal and reference waves are generated by a single source and their optical paths are matched, it has been established experimentally and theoretically that if the length of the medium is greater than the coherence length, the reflection efficiency is the same as that for monochromatic waves of the same intensity. For a short medium, fluctuations of the intensity of many nonphase-matched spectral components should increase the reflection efficiency up to sixfold.