Abstract

Phase conjugation using stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) is usually investigated in liquids and gases due to the higher Brillouin gain and self-healing ability of these media. However, in the last decade there has been a drive to develop “all-solid state lasers” and the study of SBS in the solid state is a natural extension of this development. In most solid materials the Brillouin gain coefficient is small and the phonon lifetime long compared to the duration of the pump pulse, and therefore, SBS is an inefficient process. In a conventional focused geometry this leads to breakdown and permanent damage. However, there is a small number of non-linear crystalline materials which have high gains comparable to fluid media; deuterated L-arginine phosphate (d-LAP)¹ is a well known example. In these materials efficient SBS may be induced and this leads to strong depletion of the pump beam in the focal region. This protects the focal region from high intensity and reduces the probability of damage.

© 1998 IEEE