Measurement of the stimulated thermal Rayleigh scattering instability

Abstract

The first clear experimental demonstration, to our knowledge, is reported of large amplification of small-scale spatial perturbations by stimulated thermal Rayleigh scattering of a cw laser beam propagating through an absorbing medium in a context normally associated with thermal blooming. A single-mode argon-ion laser beam with λ = 488 nm was propagated vertically downward through a 1.2-m cell filled with CCl₄ that was doped with an absorber to have optical depths in the range 0.5–2.3. A shear-plate interferometer near the cell input generated the perturbation. Fringe growth was rapid and visually obvious, as was competing growth from dust specks, etc. The measured growth rate is in good agreement with the asymptotic rate from analytic stimulated thermal Rayleigh scattering theory.

© 1991 Optical Society of America

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