Generation of strong cylindrical vector pulses via stimulated Brillouin amplification.

Light with transverse polarization structures, such as radial and azimuthal polarization, enables and revives lots of applications based on a light-matter interaction due to its unique focal properties. To date, studies referring to this topic mainly concentrate on a weak-light domain, yet it should have gained more attention in a high-energy domain. Here, we demonstrate the generation of strong single-longitudinal-mode (SLM) cylindrical vector (CV) short pulses via stimulated Brillouin amplification. As a proof-of-principle work, the energy is transferred from a pair of 700 ps pumps to a 300 ps Stokes pulse via parametrically exciting coherent phonons in fluorocarbon liquid. 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 further extending this mechanism into the beam combination system, even an ultra-high intensity CV light can be expected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]