High visibility pump reconstruction via ultra broadband sum frequency mixing of intense phase-conjugated twin beams

In this paper we show how after the generation of parametric down-conversion radiation (PDC) in the very high gain pulsed regime, we are able to reconstruct the pump via up-conversion of the twin beams originated from that PDC process. The peculiarity of the experiment is the ultra-broad spectral and angular bandwidth sent into the process of sum frequency mixing thanks to an achromatic imaging technique from the exit face of the PDC crystal using off-axis parabolic mirrors. The recorded spectra presented illustrate the high visibility recombination of the intense phase-conjugated signal and idler beams and pave the way for the investigation of both the spatial and temporal properties of the near field biphoton amplitude. (C) 2011 Optical Society of America