NUMERICAL SIMULATIONS OF SELF-INDUCED PLASMA SMOOTHING OF SPATIALLY INCOHERENT LASER BEAMS

摘要

Stimulated Brillouin Scattering (SBS) is a process in which the incident electromagnetic wave interacts with the ion acoustic fluctuations of the plasma resulting in a scattered electromagnetic wave and a growing resonant ion acoustic wave (IAW). This is a parametric instability which may produce a significant level of backscattered light. One way to reduce this level is to introduce a spatial incoherence using laser beam smoothing techniques [1].