Abstract

Above a certain threshold of intensity, cw laser light propagating in a single-mode optical fiber interacts strongly with the fiber through a stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) process. A large fraction of the input intensity may thus be converted into a backward-traveling Stokes wave. The temporal structure of the Stokes wave intensity has given rise to controversial interpretations: Deterministically chaotic¹ and stochastic² processes were suggested to explain the observed irregular structures. Recently, we presented an analysis of experimental data for the special case in which there is no external feedback³; our results were in favor of the stochastic interpretation.

© 1993 Optical Society of America