Abstract

Stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) was shown to exhibit relaxation oscillations by Johnson and Marburger,¹ and these oscillations were first observed in optical fibers by Ippen and Stolen.² The oscillation period was shown to be 2Tr, where Tr is the transit time in the fiber. We describe our Investigation of the temporal behavior of SBS in single-mode optical fibers and show, theoretically and experimentally, that it depends strongly on the amount of backreflectiion from the fiber ends. Specifically, when such backreflection, namely, feedback, is present, the relaxation oscillations become deep steady oscillations. However, if the feedback is above a certain value, the steady oscillations decay.

© 1985 Optical Society of America