When the mirrors of a conventional Michelson interferometer are replaced by phase-conjugate mirrors, the resulting interferometer displays dramatically altered behavior which makes it ideally suited to performing important operations in parallel optical image processing and optical computing. The phase-reversing property and real-time response of the phase-conjugate mirrors make this type of interferometer much more immune to spatially uniform and nonuniform phase distortions, both static and dynamic. Phase-conjugate interferometers are remarkably stable, sensitive only to real amplitude disturbances or information in the arms, and they readily display the subtraction, addition, intensity inversion, spatial differentiation and, in certain cases, temporal differentiation of two-dimensional optical images.
We describe the recent results of our efforts to characterize a photorefractive crystal to be used as a time-integrating device in an optically implemented null-steering adaptive processor for phased-array radar. We review frequency response data for the Bi(12)SiO(20) crystals, measured with an acousto-optic apparatus, and we present measured dynamic range data for the candidate Bi(12)SiO(20) crystals.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.