COLLABORATION IN BASIC SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING (COBASE)

Daniel Gauthier hosted Igor Mel’nikov of the General Physics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in August 1999. The general objective of this project was to conduct a theoretical investigation of the two-photon laser, a new type of quantum oscillator. The primary purpose of Mel’nikov’s visit to Duke University was to look in detail at recent experimental results and select a specific topic that would form the basis of a peer-reviewed paper and a proposal to the National Science Foundation. They decided to focus on the propagation of a laser beam through a two-photon amplifier for the case where the laser beam has a spatially varying intensity distribution. This topic was selected because of recent experimental results from Duke that demonstrate that the properties of the two-photon amplifier depart dramatically from what is predicted by a theoretical model that assumes no transverse spatial variation. During the visit, they developed a simple model of a two-photon amplifier. Upon conducting a preliminary analysis of this model they found that spatial effects simultaneously cause several physics effects. These effects are intertwined in a complex fashion and all modify the way in which a two-photon amplifier behaves in the highly nonlinear regime (a regime in which the two-photon laser operates naturally). They hope that these results will be important in understanding the nonlinear dynamical and quantum optical properties of real two-photon lasers. In the future this team is aiming at sustaining collaboration by obtaining long-term funding. Their plans include forming the core of a proposal for submission to the Eastern Europe and Newly Independent States Program of the National Science Foundation.