Investigation on the suppression of stimulated Brillouin scattering in single-frequency Raman fiber amplifiers

High power operation of single-frequency Raman fiber amplifiers (SF-RFAs) is usually limited by the onset of stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS). In this paper, we present our theoretical investigation on the suppression of SBS in SF-RFAs, based on the intensity equations combining SBS and stimulated Raman scattering (SRS). The effects of increasing the mode area of fiber and utilizing temperature and strain gradients along the fiber on the suppression of SBS are discussed. The simulation results suggest that it is not an advisable method to suppress SBS in SF-RFAs by increasing the mode area. Besides, although tensile strain and temperature gradients can suppress SBS in RFA singly, the conditions are too rigorous to realize. Based on the numerical simulation results, a feasible scheme for the suppression of SBS in RFA is proposed using the temperature gradients together with tensile strain gradients along the fiber length, resulting in an increase of ∼3 times of amplifiers output power.