title: Stimulated Brillouin scattering suppression through laser gain competition: scalability to high power.
abstract: We demonstrate stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) suppression in a Yb-doped fiber amplifier by seeding with a combination of broad- and single-frequency laser beams that are separated sufficiently to suppress four-wave mixing and to allow for efficient laser gain competition between the two signals. In the experiment, a monolithic fiber configuration was used. With appropriate selection of seed power ratio, we were able to generate single-frequency 1064 nm light with a slope efficiency of 78% while simultaneously suppressing the backscattered Stokes light. We discuss scalability to high power wherein a large thermal gradient can be induced at the output end of the fiber via quantum defect heating, leading to an SBS suppression factor comparable to counterpumping.
authors.affiliation: Advanced Electric Laser Branch, Air Force Research Laboratory, 3550 Aberdeen Avenue SE, Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico 87117, USA. Iyad.Dajani@kirtland.af.mil
authors.forename: Iyad
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Dajani
authors.forename: Clint
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zeringue
authors.forename: Chunte
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.forename: Christopher
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Vergien
authors.forename: Leanne
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Henry
authors.forename: Craig
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Robin