High frequency Brillouin scattering in metals and gaseous plasmas

Spontaneous and stimulated Brillouin scattering are studied in metals and gaseous plasmas, for an incident laser frequencyω ₁ greater than the corresponding plasma frequencyω _plin the medium. The calculation of threshold powers for the stimulated scattering in aluminium metal and non-degenerate Al-plasmas shows that their values become quite small asω ₁ approachesω _plFor the case of backward wave scattering we also estimate the critical power above which a temporal instability sets in such media. It is argued that this instability may be one of the factors for anomalously large absorption of high power laser beams in laser-induced plasmas.