Generating strong cylindrical vector pulses via stimulated Brillouin amplification

Abstract: Light with transverse polarization structure, such as radial and azimuthal polarization, enables and revives lots of applications based on light-matter interaction due to their unique focal properties. To date, studies referring to this topic mainly concentrate in weak-light domain, yet it should have gained more attention in strong-light domain. A main factor contributing to the current situation is that the generation devices cannot afford high power. Here, in this proof-of-principle work, we demonstrate the generation of strong single-longitudinal-mode (SLM) cylindrical vector (CV) short pulses via stimulated Brillouin amplification, specifically, the energy is transferred from a 700 ps pump to a 300 ps Stokes pulse via parametrically generated coherent phonons. After amplification, a 100 mJ-level SLM CV pulse light with 300 ps duration is obtained. Meanwhile, the phase and polarization structures are high fidelity maintained. This result provides a practicable way to generate strong CV light, and by extending this mechanism into multi-pump beam combing system, even an ultra-high intensity CV light can be expected.