Stimulated thermal scattering induced by two-photon absorption and experimental observation of stimulated Brillouin scattering in the UV region

Abstract

An analysis of the results of previous studies of stimulated scattering of UV pulses in liquids has shown that they disagree with the theory of stimulated scattering. To resolve the inconsistency, stimulated scattering of XeCl excimer laser radiation (λ = 308 nm) with pulse duration τ ≈ 8 ns in liquid hexane is investigated experimentally. A theoretical analysis of the results obtained revealed a new nonlinear optical phenomenon: stimulated thermal scattering induced by the heating due to two-photon absorption, called two-photon stimulated thermal scattering (two-photon STS-2). The stimulated backscatter spectrum contains a previously unknown line corresponding to two-photon STS-2 and a newly discovered SBS line in the UV region. The line is observed in experiment on liquid hexane and is characterized by the frequency shift ΩB = 0.33 cm−1 relative to the pump wavelength λ = 308 nm, in complete agreement with the theory of stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS). The spectral line called the SBS line in previous studies has a frequency shift much smaller than that predicted by the SBS theory and must be interpreted as an unshifted two-photon STS-2 line. When two-photon STS-2 is used to obtain a phase-conjugate wave, the phase-conjugation fidelity is lower than that achieved by using SBS because of thermal self-action and slow decay of the thermal grating.