Stimulated Brillouin scattering-induced phase noise in an interferometric fiber sensing system

Stimulated Brillouin scattering-induced phase noise is harmful to interferometric fiber sensing systems. The localized fluctuating model is used to study the intensity noise caused by the stimulated Brillouin scattering in a single-mode fiber. The phase noise structure is analyzed for an interferometric fiber sensing system, and an unbalanced Michelson interferometer with an optical path difference of 1 m, as well as the phase-generated carrier technique, is used to measure the phase noise. It is found that the phase noise is small when the input power is below the stimulated Brillouin scattering threshold, increases dramatically at first and then gradually becomes flat when the input power is above the threshold, which is similar to the variation in relative intensity noise. It can be inferred that the increase in phase noise is mainly due to the broadening of the laser linewidth caused by stimulated Brillouin scattering, which is verified through linewidth measurements in the absence and presence of the stimulated Brillouin scattering.

Stimulated Brillouin Scattering Enhancement Factor Improvement in a 11.6-GHz-Linewidth 1.5-kW Yb-Doped Fiber Amplifier

The stimulated Brillouin scattering （SBS） threshold enhancement factor in a pure white noise linewidth broad- ening Yb-doped fiber amplifier （YDFA） with a short large mode area fiber is theoretically and experimentally studied. We demonstrate a 1064.08nm, 11.6 GHz finewidth, 1.5 k W output power YDFA with an SBS threshold enhancement of -57 （26 W SBS threshold with single frequency seed）. The output beam is near-diffraction lim- ited with a beam quality factor elM2 = 1.15 and a slope efficiency of up to 87%. No SBS or stimulated Raman scattering effects are observed in the whole power range. Further power sealing is limited by the available pump power in our system.

Measurement of stimulated Brillouin scattering(SBS) threshold based on waveform variation of SBS optical limiting

This paper proposes a method for measuring the stimulated Brillouin scattering （SBS） threshold based on waveform variation of SBS optical limiting. The output waveforms for different pump power densities are numerically simulated, and validated in the Nd：YAG seed-injected laser system. The results indicate that SBS does not take place in the case of a low pump power density and thus the output power scales up linearly with pump power. Once the pump power density exceeds the SBS threshold, SBS takes place and thereby the energies are transferred from pump to Stokes. As a result, a small shoulder appears in the trailing edge of the output waveform, which provides another method to determine the SBS threshold.

A simple model of suppressing stimulated Brillouin scattering in optical fiber with frequency-modulated laser

A simple model is developed to study the mechanism of stimulated Brillouin scattering（SBS） suppression with frequency-modulated laser in optical fiber. By taking into account the laser frequency distribution along the fiber induced by frequency modulation, the average effective Brillouin gain is calculated to determine the SBS threshold. Experimental results show agreement with the numerical analysis. The application for SBS suppression in interferometric fiber sensing system is also discussed in this paper. The results show that the maximum input power can be increased effectively by frequency modulation method.

Investigation on the effect of beam divergence angle upon output waveform based on stimulated Brillouin scattering optical limiting

This paper investigates the effect of beam divergence angle on output waveform based on stimulated Brillouin scattering optical limiting.Output waveforms in the case of different pump divergence angles are numerically simulated,and validated in a Nd：YAG seed-injected laser system.The results indicate that a small pump divergence angle can lead to good interaction between pump and Stokes,and a platform can be easily realized in the transmitted waveform.In contrast,a peak followed by the platform appears when the divergence angle becomes large.

Effect of water temperature on pulse duration and energy of stimulated Brillouin scattering

The water temperature has a strong effect on the kinematic viscosity, which is inversely proportional to the phonon lifetime and the gain coefficient. The higher the temperature is, the smaller the kinematic viscosity is, and the larger the phonon lifetime is. At a low pump power and a short focal length, we can derive a single-peak stimulated Brillouin scattering （SBS） pulse. The duration of this single-peak SBS pulse depends mainly on the phonon lifetime of water. With the increase of the water temperature, the duration of such a single-peak SBS pulse will become longer, and the SBS energy will become higher for the gain coefficient, which is related to the phonon lifetime. Therefore, varying the medium temperature can lead to the changes of SBS pulse duration and SBS energy.

Effect of stimulated Brillouin scattering on the gain saturation of distributed fiber Raman amplifier and its suppression by phase modulation

For distributed fiber Raman amplifiers（DFRAs）, stimulated Brillouin scattering（SBS） can deplete the pump once occurring and consequently generate gain saturation. On the basis of such a theory, theoretical gain saturation powers in DFRAs with various pump schemes are obtained by calculating SBS thresholds in them, and the experimental results show that they are in excellent agreement with the calculation results. The saturation power of the DFRA with a 300 m W forward pump is as low as 0 d Bm, which needs to be enhanced by phase modulation, and the effect is quantitatively studied. A simple model taking both modulation frequency and index into consideration is presented by introducing a correction factor to evaluate the effect of phase modulation on the enhancement of saturation power. Experimentally, it is shown that such a correction factor decreases as the modulation frequency increases and approaches zero when the modulation frequency becomes high enough. In particular, a phase modulation with a modulation frequency of 100 MHz and a modulation index of 1.380 can enhance the saturation power by 4.44 d B, and the correction factor is 0.25 d B, in which the modulation frequency is high enough. Additionally, the factor is 1.767 d B for the modulation frequency of 25 MHz. On this basis,phase modulations with various indexes and a fixed frequency of 25 MHz are adopted to verify the modified model, and the results are positive. To obtain the highest gain saturation power, the model is referable. The research results provide a guide for the design of practical DFRAs.

Suppression of auto-resonant stimulated Brillouin scattering in supersonic flowing plasmas by different forms of incident lasers

In supersonic flowing plasmas,the auto-resonant behavior of ion acoustic waves driven by stimulated Brillouin backscattering is self-consistently investigated.A nature of absolute instability appears in the evolution of the stimulated Brillouin backscattering.By adopting certain form of incident lights combined by two perpendicular linear polarization lasers or polarization rotation lasers,the absolute instability is suppressed significantly.The suppression of auto-resonant stimulated Brillouin scattering is verified with the fully kinetic Vlasov code.

Bursting behaviours in cascaded stimulated Brillouin scattering

Stimulated Brillouin scattering is studied by numerically solving the Vlasov Maxwell system. A cascade of stim- ulated Brillouin scattering can occur when a linearly polarized laser pulse propagates in a plasma. It is found that a stimulated Brillouin scattering cascade can reduce the scattering and increase the transmission of light, as well as intro- duce a bursting behaviour in the evolution of the laser-plasma interaction. The bursting time in the reflectivity is found to be less than half the ion acoustic period. The ion temperature can affect the stimulated Brillouin scattering cascade, which can repeat several times at low ion temperatures and can be completely eliminated at high ion temperatures. For stimulated Brillouin scattering saturation, higher-harmonic generation and wave wave interaction of the excited ion acoustic waves can restrict the amplitude of the latter. In addition, stimulated Brillouin scattering cascade can restrict. the amplitude of the scattered light.

Distributed analysis of forward stimulated Brillouin scattering for acoustic impedance sensing by extraction of a 2nd-order local spectrum

Distributed fiber sensors based on forward stimulated Brillouin scattering(F-SBS)have attracted special attention because of their capability to detect the acoustic impedance of liquid material outside fiber.However,the reported results were based on the extraction of a 1st-order local spectrum,causing the sensing distance to be restricted by pump depletion.Here,a novel post-processing technique was proposed for distributed acoustic impedance sensing by extracting the 2nd-order local spectrum,which is beneficial for improving the sensing signal-to-noise ratio(SNR)significantly,since its pulse energy penetrates into the fiber more deeply.As a proof-of-concept,distributed acoustic impedance sensing along~1630 m fiber under moderate spatial resolution of~20 m was demonstrated.

A new method for measuring the threshold of stimulated Brillouin scattering

A new method for measuring the threshold of stimulated Brillouin scattering （SBS） based on the generation location of a Stokes beam is proposed for the first time to our knowledge. The length of the medium cell is selected to be longer than the free gain length of pump pulses in the Brillouin medium. The reflected light from a certain mirror in front of the medium cell is chosen as the reference beam, and the SBS threshold is measured by the ＂jump＂ of the delay between the Stokes beam and the reference beam. An 8-ns Q-switched single-longitudinal-mode pulse is used as the pump and the typical SBS medium FC-72 is selected as the nonlinear medium in our experiment. The SBS threshold intensity is measured to be 173-178 mW/cm2, which is consistent with existing results measured with the transmitted energy limiting method.

The Stimulated Brillouin Scattering of a Strong Laser in Partially Stripped Plasmas

The effects of the nonlinear polarization in a partially stripped plasma on stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) process of a strong laser are discussed. A set of nonlineax mode coupling equations and the linear growth rate of SBS instability is derived, respectively. When the intensity of an incident laser Io > 10^(17) W/cm^2, the third order susceptibility X(3) will reduce the above mentioned linear growth rate enormously. If taking the maximum value of the second order susceptibility X(2), the growth rate may be decreased observably when Io > 10_^(14)W/cm2. Furthermore, the nonlinear susceptibility can affect the nonlinear evolution of SBS much extensively.

On-chip stimulated Brillouin scattering[Invited]

On-chip stimulated Brillouin scattering(SBS)has attracted extensive attention by introducing acousto-optic coupling interactions in all-optical signal processing systems.A series of chip-level applications such as Brillouin lasers,amplifiers,gyroscopes,filters,and nonreciprocal devices are realized based on Brillouin acousto-optic interaction.Here,we first introduce the fundamental principle of SBS in integrated photonics and a method for calculating Brillouin gain;then we illustrate the Brillouin effect on different material platforms with diverse applications.Finally,we make a concise conclusion and offer prospects on the future developments of on-chip SBS.

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

The stimulated Brillouin scattering phase conjugation mirror (SBS-PCM) based on liquid media is widely used in high-power laser systems due to its robust thermal load capacity, high energy conversion efficiency and improved beam quality. Nevertheless, with an increase in the pump repetition rate, thermally-induced blooming and optical breakdown can emerge, leading to distortions in the Stokes beam. In this study, we delved into the thermal effects in liquid SBS-PCMs employing hydrodynamic analysis, establishing a relationship between beam profile distortion and the thermal convection field. We calculated the temperature and convection velocity distribution based on the pump light parameters and recorded the corresponding beam profiles. The intensities of the beam profiles were modulated in alignment with the convection directions, reaching a velocity peak of 2.85 mm/s at a pump pulse repetition rate of 250 Hz. The residual sum of squares (RSS) was employed to quantify the extent of beam profile distortion relative to a Gaussian distribution. The RSS escalated to 7.8, in contrast to 0.7 of the pump light at a pump pulse repetition rate of 500 Hz. By suppressing thermal convection using a high-viscosity medium, we effectively mitigated beam distortion. The RSS was reduced to 0.7 at a pump pulse repetition rate of 500 Hz, coinciding with a twentyfold increase in viscosity, thereby enhancing the beam quality. By integrating hydrodynamic analysis, we elucidated and mitigated distortion with targeted solutions. Our research offers an interdisciplinary perspective on studying thermal effects and contributes to the application of SBS-PCMs in high-repetition-rate laser systems by unveiling the mechanism of photothermal effects.

Suppression of stimulated Brillouin and Raman scatterings using an alternating frequency laser and transverse magnetic fields

A novel scheme to suppress both stimulated Brillouin scattering(SBS) and stimulated Raman scattering(SRS) by combining an alternating frequency(AF) laser and a transverse magnetic field is proposed. The AF laser allows the laser frequency to change discretely and alternately over time. The suppression of SBS is significant as long as the AF difference is greater than the linear growth rate of SBS or the alternating time of the laser frequency is shorter than the linear growth time of SBS. However, the AF laser proves ineffective in suppressing SRS, which usually has a much higher linear growth rate than SBS. To remedy that, a transverse magnetic field is included to suppress the SRS instability. The electrons trapped in the electron plasma waves(EPWs) of SRS can be accelerated by the surfatron mechanism in a transverse magnetic field and eventually detrapped. While continuously extracting energy from EPWs, the EPWs are dissipated and the kinetic inflation of SRS is suppressed. The one-dimensional particle-in-cell simulation results show that both SBS and SRS can be effectively suppressed by combining the AF laser with a transverse magnetic field with tens of Tesla. The total reflectivity can be dramatically reduced by more than one order of magnitude. These results provide a potential reference for controlling SBS and SRS under the related parameters of inertial confinement fusion.

High-power free-running single-longitudinal-mode diamond Raman laser enabled by suppressing parasitic stimulated Brillouin scattering

A continuous-wave(CW)single-longitudinal-mode(SLM)Raman laser at 1240 nm with power of up to 20.6 W was demonstrated in a free-running diamond Raman oscillator without any axial-mode selection elements.The SLM operation was achieved due to the spatial-hole-burning free nature of Raman gain and was maintained at the highest available pump power by suppressing the parasitic stimulated Brillouin scattering(SBS).A folded-cavity design was employed for reducing the perturbing effect of resonances at the pump frequency.At a pump power of 69 W,the maximum Stokes output reached 20.6 W,corresponding to a 30%optical-to-optical conversion efficiency from 1064to 1240 nm.The result shows that parasitic SBS is the main physical process disturbing the SLM operation of Raman oscillator at higher power.In addition,for the first time,the spectral linewidth of a CW SLM diamond Raman laser was resolved using the long-delayed self-heterodyne interferometric method,which is 105 kHz at 20 W.

A 115 ps,100 Hz high-beam-quality laser based on transient stimulated Brillouin scattering pulse compression

This work demonstrates the generation of short pulse duration and high-beam-quality laser pulses using transient stimulated Brillouin scattering at a high repetition rate.Thermal effects and optical breakdown are identified as the main factors that restrict energy reflectivity and beam quality under high repetition rates and transient situations.Through experimental analysis,the interaction length and focal point size are determined to be the key parameters in reducing the thermal effect by reducing the absorption of the laser pulse by the medium.The obtained results show that pulses with a duration of 175 ps and beam quality M^(2)of around 1.2 can be achieved with a maximum energy reflectivity of over 40%under an interaction length of 50 mm.Furthermore,at an interaction length of 90 mm,a pulse output with a minimum duration of 115 ps(0.5τQ)is achieved.

Research on stimulated Brillouin scattering suppression based on multi-frequency phase modulation

The method of generating equal-amplitude spectral lines by multi-frequency phase modulation is used in stimulated Brillouin scattering （SBS） suppression. The spectra of three, five, seven, and eleven equalamplitude spectral lines are obtained in experiment with flatnesses less than 0.3 dB. Theoretical research on SBS suppression shows that the threshold power after modulation is in reverse proportion to the maximum square of amplitude moduli of fundamental frequency and the nth harmonic wave. The threshold powers of three, five, seven, and eleven equal-amplitude spectral lines are improved by 5.21, 8.36, 9.39, and 10.76 dB, respectively.

High efficiency of Brillouin scattering behavior in single-mode Ge–As–Se–Te fibers at 2μm

The Brillouin characteristics of step-index Ge–As–Se–Te(GAST)fibers at 2μm are designed and simulated on the basis of optical and acoustic properties.The refractive indexes of Ge_(20)As_(20)Se_(45)Te_(15)glass and Ge_(20)As_(20)Se_(43)Te_(17)glass serving as fiber core and cladding are 3.20 and 3.18 at 2μm,and their acoustic velocities are 2200 m/s and 2300 m/s,respectively.Numerical results indicate that the stimulated Brillouin scattering(SBS)efficiency is 248 m^(-1)·W^(-1),and the Brillouin threshold power is 66 m W when the core diameter of the 2-m-long GAST fiber is 4μm at 2-μm wavelength.The optic–acoustic coupling factor,the Brillouin frequency shift,and the Brillouin gain coefficient are 0.98,7.02 GHz,and 3.81×10^(-9)m/W,respectively.The SBS effect of GAST fibers simulated for the first time provides a new promising approach to selecting gain medium based on 2-μm-wavelength fiber laser.

Stimulated Brillouin scattering evolution and suppression in an integrated stimulated thermal Rayleigh scattering-based fiber laser

The spectral purity of fiber lasers has become a critical issue in both optical sensing and communication fields.As a result of ultra-narrow intrinsic linewidth, stimulated thermal Rayleigh scattering(STRS) has presented special potential to compress the linewidth of fiber lasers. To suppress stimulated Brillouin scattering(SBS), the most dominant disturbance for STRS in optical fibers, a semi-quantitative estimation has been established to illuminate the mechanism of suppressing SBS in a periodic tapered fiber, and it agrees with experimental results. Finally, a linewidth compression device based on STRS is integrated into a single-longitudinal-mode ring-cavity fiber laser with secondary cavities, and its linewidth is verified to be 200 Hz through a self-heterodyne detecting and Voigt fitting method.