Supression of nonlinear processes of stimulated scattering beam collapse, and breakdown of the medium during beam scanning: Self-focusing of "strolling beams"
Askar'yan G.A., Diyanov Kh. A., Mukhamadzhanov M.A.
It is shown experimentally that the scanning of powerful laser beams can eliminate in many cases undesirable nonlinear processes such as stimulated scattering, breakdown and damage of the medium, inertial self-focusing processes, etc., if the time of scanning of the beam over its diameter is less than the time of formation or growth of the stimulated processes. This suppression of the stimulated processes was investigated with a setup with self-triggered scanning of the beam. It is noted that such a setup can be used also to investigate rapid processes and can replace in some cases devices of the image converter and photoelectric recorder type.