Strong reflection of a series of pulses from a four-wave mirror with thermal nonlinearity under parametric feedback conditions

A four-wave mirror exhibiting a thermal nonlinearity was used in a study of the interaction of concurrent waves under parametric feedback conditions in the presence of a nonreciprocal element. Strong reflection of a series of pulses of ~ 300 ns duration from a neodymium glass laser was demonstrated: the maximum reflection coefficient was in excess of 30. An analysis was made of the quality of the radiation reflected from this four-mirror parametric feedback system. A considerable reduction was observed in the steady-state threshold for the operation of this mirror with a thermal nonlinearity when the angles of convergence of the interacting beams were small compared with the case of head-on collision of the waves.