Stability enhancement with nonlinear gain modulation in high-power SBS-PCM

Stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) is an effective method for compensating wavefront aberrations in high-energy lasers due to its phase conjugation property. However, SBS phase conjugate mirrors (SBS-PCMs) under high-power pumping often suffer from significant spatial aberrations and decreased energy reflectivity, indicating instability in the nonlinear gain. Here, a nonlinear gain modulation method is proposed to realize the stable output. Experiments show that the energy reflectivity of SBS decreased due to the thermal effect in high-repetition-rate pumped SBS-PCMs. The nonlinear gain modulation was accomplished with simultaneous adaptation of radial and axial focusing parameters resulting in a higher SBS gain under short-focus conditions. The feasibility of the method was experimentally confirmed by obtaining SBS energy reflectivity stabilized at 60%, while the root mean squares of steady-state Stokes energy and pulse time delay enhanced to 1.97% and 1.81%, respectively, in an HT-230 medium. This scheme ensures stable and efficient SBS output under high-power pumping, which is of great significance for expanding the application of SBS-PCMs in high-repetition-rate laser systems.