Polarization and spatial information recovery by modal dispersal and phase conjugation: properties and applications

We describe recent theoretical and experimental studies of polarization and spatial information recovery by modal dispersal and phase conjugation. We discuss the fidelity of this phase-conjugation process as a function of input-beam launching conditions. We also describe several new applications of the scheme which involve correction of nonreciprocal polarization distortions, correction of lossy amplitude distortions, phase-conjugate multimode fiber-optic interferometers and gyros, temporal data channeling between beams, and all-optical beam thresholding.