Abstract
We first reported1 shot-to-shot fluctuations in the far-field fidelity of a single-cell, stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) phase-conjugate mirror under saturated reflectivity conditions at CLEO '89. In our initial experiments, we used an unaberrated pump beam and simple focusing to generate an SBS beam in a cell containing compressed CH4 or N2. We have subsequently broadened our study in two ways. First, we confirmed the occurrence of similar fidelity fluctuations in the SBS reflection from a liquid-filled lightguide when using a phase-aberrated pump beam. Second, we experimentally demonstrated that focal-region heating and potential competing nonlinearities [self-focusing, stimulated Raman scattering (SRS), and sparking] do not cause the fidelity fluctuations. We conclude that the fluctuations are a fundamental aspect of SBS in the saturated reflectivity regime and reflect a partial breakdown in the discrimination mechanism, which selectively amplifies the conjugate mode above all the other noise modes that initiate the SBS process.
© 1991 Optical Society of America
PDF ArticleMore Like This
M. L. Dlabal, J. Reintjes, and R. H. Lehmberg
ThT9 Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO:S&I) 1986
PAUL SUNI and JOEL FALK
MHH4 International Quantum Electronics Conference (IQEC) 1987
V Devrelis, M O’Connor, J Munch, S Afsharvahid, C-J Wei, and A-M Grisogono
WL59 International Quantum Electronics Conference (IQEC) 1996