Mode-locking of a phase conjugating laser oscillator with a nonlinear mirror based on stimulated Brillouin scattering

We set up a mode-locked Nd:YAG laser oscillator with a broad flexibility in the temporal structure of the emitted pulses. The pulses are generated by a laser oscillator with a phase conjugating mirror based on stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS). The nonlinear SBS-mirror also serves as a passive Q-switch of the laser oscillator. An active loss modulator is used to modulate the losses thereby supporting the inherent mode locking of the SBS-mirror actively. The laser action starts in a start resonator with the leading edge of a spike. The acoustic modulation frequency together with the appropriate resonator length of 187.5cm results in a temporal spacing of the mode-locked pulses of 12.5ns.