Stimulated Brillouin scattering mirror and a plasma switch in a double-pass laser amplifier

An investigation was made of a gadolinium scandium gallium garnet laser activated with Cr³⁺ and Nd³⁺. A stimulated Brillouin scattering mirror and a plasma switch made it possible to vary the duration of the pulses emitted by this laser within wide limits. Compression of light pulses as a result of stimulated Brillouin scattering in CCl₄ reduced the Stokes pulse duration to ~0.5 nsec, which was close to the theoretical limit.