Competition between stimulated Brillouin scattering and optical breakdown in argon

Measurements were made of the dependences of the stimulated Brillouin scattering (STBS) threshold and of the gain g (cm/MW) on the pressure of argon. The influence of the focusing geometry on the process of competition between STBS and optical breakdown was studied. The influence of breakdown on STBS was described by introducing effective nonlinear losses proportional to the intensity of the pump radiation. Within the framework of this approach a good agreement was obtained between the experimental and theoretical results.