Laser-Beam Smoothing Induced by Stimulated Brillouin Scattering in an Inhomogeneous Plasma
- Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique, BP 12, 91680 Bruyeres-Le-Chatel (France)
We present results of two-dimensional simulations of the stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) of an optically smoothed laser beam propagating in an expanding plasma. In the weak damping limit, both backscattered and transmitted light waves exhibit an additional spatiotemporal incoherence, which is shown to be induced by SBS taking place in an inhomogeneous plasma. This mechanism is not related to laser-beam self-focusing and is thus complementary to plasma-induced smoothing [A. J. Schmitt and B. B. Afeyan, Phys. Plasmas 5, 503 (1998)]. The incoherence induced by SBS in the entrance part of the plasma could reduce the growth of parametric instabilities developing further inside the plasma and is able to significantly enlarge the spreading angle of the transmitted light. The angular width of the backscattered light is also found to be significantly larger than the aperture angle of the incident beam.
- OSTI ID:
- 20861149
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 97, Issue 20; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.97.205001; (c) 2006 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0031-9007
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Suppression of Stimulated Brillouin Scattering in multiple-ion species inertial confinemen fusion Hohlraum Plasmas
Study of instabilities in long scale-length plasmas with and without laser-beam-smoothing techniques