Photorefractive incoherent-to-coherent optical converter

Photorefractive materials have been extensively used in recent years as real-time recording media for optical holography.(^1,2) One prospective application of real-time holography is in the area of optical information processing; for example, the correlation between two mutually incoherent images has recently been demonstrated in real time in a four-wave mixing geometry. (^3) Often, however, the information to be processed exists only in incoherent form. High performance spatial light modulators(^4) are thus necessary in many optical information processing systems to convert incoherent images to coherent replicas for subsequent processing. We report in this Communication the successful demonstration of real-time incoherent-to-coherent images transduction through the use of holographic recording in photorefractive crystals. Several possible configurations and experimental results are presented.