Photorefractive vectorial wave mixing in different geometries

We analyze vectorial wave mixing in a photorefractive crystal of cubic symmetry in different geometries of beam interactions-reflection, transmission, and orthogonal. It is shown that orthogonal geometry in contrast with others supports an efficient phase demodulation of a depolarized object wave in linear mode without using any polarization-filtering elements. As a result adaptive interferometers based on the orthogonal geometry can provide a higher signal-to-noise ratio due to lower noise and lower optical losses. (C) 2010 Optical Society of America