Polarization methods for improvement of the energy characteristics of wavefrontreversing mirrors

A theoretical and experimental investigation is reported of the feasibility of using a polarization method for decoupling of reference waves in a system incorporating threshold-free reflection and a "Brillouin" amplifier. Expressions are derived for the characteristic time taken for the establishment of scattering processes and for the spatial structure of the interacting waves. It is shown experimentally that this method can ensure a substantial improvement in the reflection efficiency whilst maintaining the quality of the wavefront reversal.