Four-wave mixing in a liquid suspension of transparent dielectric microspheres

The process of four-wave mixing in an artificial heterogeneous nonlinear medium—a liquid suspension of transparent dielectric microspheres—is considered. The dynamics of the concentration response to gradient forces that act on microspheres in the interference field of interacting waves are investigated on the basis of the Smolukhovskii equation. Kinetic equations for the amplitudes of light-induced concentration gratings that take part in the four-wave mixing are obtained with the use of the Fourier series expansion of the distribution function of microspheres. The ratios of the microsphere radius to the grating periods are obtained under which the resultant gradient force vanishes and, hence, a suspension of dielectric microspheres does not exhibit nonlinear properties irrespective of the intensities of the interacting waves. The kinetics of the process of four-wave mixing is investigated under efficient energy exchange between reference, signal, and reversed waves. It is shown that a liquid suspension of transparent dielectric spheres is a highly effective wideband nonlinear medium for reversing the wave front of low-intensity radiation of continuous-wave lasers.