Angular momentum driven dynamics of stimulated Brillouin scattering in multimode fibers

Abstract

The strength of stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) in optical fibers is largely governed by the spatial overlap between supported optical and acoustic modes, leading to a complicated amalgamation of photon-phonon interactions in multimode fibers. Here, we study SBS dynamics in ring-core fibers that support modes carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM), which result in distinctive characteristics. We find that the OAM SBS response, as well as modal content, strongly depends on the polarization state of the pump, as OAM modes in fiber have distinct propagation dynamics depending on whether the input is circularly or linearly polarized. This is in contrast to conventionally posited wisdom that SBS strength is independent of the pump’s input polarization state in an isotropic material. This increased specificity can lead to interesting effects such as spatial phase conjugation even in the presence of stably transmitted, i.e. non-aberrated, spatial pump modes. More generally, we show that using OAM modes yields additional degrees of control over SBS interactions beyond more conventional parameters, such as effective area, acousto-optic spatial overlaps, and material composition.