All-optical power-controlled switching in wave mixing: application to semiconductor-doped glasses

An all-optical power-controlled switch is described. It is based on the modulation of self-diffracted beams by a control beam that modifies the third-order grating excited in a nonlinear medium. The experimental results obtained by using Cd(S, Se)-doped glasses are in agreement with the theoretical predictions. For an application, we also report the generation of dark pulses with subnanosecond width based on the studied process.