Beam spatial intensity modification based on stimulated Brillouin amplification

Abstract

The beam spatial intensity distribution is critical to laser applications both in the scientific and the industrial fields. Here, a method for beam spatial intensity modification based on stimulated Brillouin amplification (SBA) is proposed, which provides an alternative approach of laser beam shaping accompanied by efficient energy amplification. Three beam shaping schemes based on SBA has been demonstrated and evaluated in theoretical simulation and experiments with pulsed laser. The results indicate that the spatial distribution can be modified by manipulation of the beam polarization and the intensity. Finally, the shaped Stokes beam has been modified into the flat-top distribution with the output pulse energy increasing to 4.43 times of the input energy, proving the feasibility of SBA spatial shaping method.

Characteristics and suppression of beam distortion in a high repetition rate nanosecond stimulated Brillouin scattering phase conjugation mirror

“…Stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) is an effective method to achieve temporal, frequency and spatial modulation of laser beams [8][9][10][11][12] . The inherent phase conjugation, amplification and slight frequency shift features of SBS enable stimulated Brillouin scattering phase conjugation mirrors (SBS-PCMs) to correct beam aberrations with high conversion efficiency [13][14][15] . Particularly in the field of high-energy lasers, liquid media have been widely adopted for SBS-PCMs and amplifiers due to their ability to handle high-energy loads, offer high gains and enable flexible media cell designs [8,[16][17][18][19][20] .…”

Linewidth narrowing in free-space running diamond Brillouin lasers

“…High-power narrow linewidth single-frequency lasers have attracted extensive interest due to their superior characteristics in some fields, such as gravitational wave detection [1] , quantum information optics [2] , atomic physics [3] and nonlinear frequency conversion [4][5][6] . The most widely used approaches to obtain high-power narrow linewidth lasers are master oscillator power amplification (MOPA) structures based on low-power narrow linewidth seeds [7,8] and single-cavity structures with direct high-power output [9,10] .…”