Abstract
The use of phase-conjugate mirrors is of particular importance for high energy, high average power laser systems. Although it has been proposed that SBS phase conjugators can be scaled to very high peak powers using two stage amplifier-generator designs,1 when possible it is desirable to employ a single-cell simple focused conjugator geometry operated many times above threshold from the standpoint of achieving high reflectivity as well as design simplicity. Even for the two-cell design, it is advantageous to operate the focused generator cell high above threshold for optimal reversal of the high-frequency spatial content of the beam wavefront. However, it has been recently suggested that the return from a single cell SBS phase conjugator will inherently exhibit large shot-to-shot phase fluctuations for input energies that exceed the SBS threshold by only three to four times.2 We have found that these random fluctuations are not fundamental to the conjugation process but are related to the slope of the leading edge of the laser pulse and can be suppressed by proper tailoring of the input pulse shape.
© 1992 Optical Society of America
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