Abstract

The propagation of powerful nanosecond optical pulses at the wavelength of 355 nm in thick silica windows usually gives rise to Kerr-induced multiple filamentation, which breaks the homogeneity of the energy distribution and can initiate surface or bulk damage. Part of the incident beam is furthermore back-reflected by stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS), leading to the creation of a Stokes wave which is also source of damage at the front surface of the sample [1,2]. To address this problem, we study the interaction of these two nonlinear effects from coupled envelope equations in full (3+1)-dimensional geometry. Emphasis is put on the influence of the incident pulse spatial profile and of phase or amplitude modulations applied to the pump wave.

© 2011 Optical Society of America