Stimulated Brillouin Scattering in Piezoelectric Semiconductors

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Abstract
A classical theory of Stimulated Brillouin Scattering (SBS) in piezoelectric semiconductors is presented. It is shown that, to a first approximation, acoustoelectric interactions act to change the inverse absorption length of sound from a value α = αs, where αs is the absorption coefficient in the absence of acoustoelectric phenomena, to α = αs+αw+ikβ, where αw is the ultrasonic attenuation and β is the relative change in sound velocity due to piezoelectric stiffening, both as derived by White. Calculations based on a solution obtained with simple boundary conditions indicate that the threshold for SBS can be significantly reduced when the scattering process takes place in the presence of ultrasonic amplification. Results indicate that the threshold may be reduced to a flux in the neighborhood of 106 W/m2, a value attainable with currently available cw lasers.