Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Modification of Spatial and Temporal Gains of Stimulated Brillouin and Raman Scattering by Polarization Smoothing

Journal Article · · Physical Review Letters
 [1];  [1];  [1];  [2];  [1]
  1. Laboratoire pour l'Utilisation des Lasers Intenses, UMR 7605 CNRS-Ecole Polytechnique-CEA-Universite Paris VI, Ecole Polytechnique, 91128 Palaiseau Cedex, (France)
  2. Institute for Laser Science and Applications (ILSA), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California 94550 (United States)

Significant reductions of stimulated Brillouin (SBS) and Raman (SRS) scattering are measured by adding polarization smoothing (PS) to a random phase plate smoothed beam. The associated plasma waves, as measured by Thomson scattering, are spatially and temporally modified and reveal that the interplay between SBS and SRS has to be taken into account to understand the effect of the smoothing. The results also support the numerical simulations [S. Hueller et al., Phys. Plasmas 5, 2706 (1998); R. Berger et al., Phys. Plasmas 6, 1043 (1999)] predicting a reduction of self-focusing with PS, resulting in a decrease of the maximum laser intensity and consequently of SBS and SRS gains. (c) 2000 The American Physical Society.

OSTI ID:
20215876
Journal Information:
Physical Review Letters, Journal Name: Physical Review Letters Journal Issue: 14 Vol. 84; ISSN 0031-9007; ISSN PRLTAO
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English