Abstract

We have observed that the fidelity of conjugation by SBS is degraded by an increase of the transiency of the SBS process. We studied conjugation of 1053-nm input pulses with durations ranging from 1 to 70 ns and with astigmatic phase error ranging from 0.5 to 3.0 waves. As conjugating media, we used the liquid CCL₄ with an acoustic lifetime of 0.7 ns and the gas CH₄ at 55 atm with an acoustic lifetime of 14 ns. With either medium, phase reversal to within 0.1λ occurred for input errors as large as 3.0λ. However, the reflected beam contained amplitude modulation whose depth increased with either the intensity or astigmatism of the input pulse or with the transiency of the SBS process.

© 1989 Optical Society of America