Threshold reduction of stimulated Brillouin scattering by Stokes seeds via acousto-optic effect

We present a method of threshold reduction of stimulated Brillouin scattering by importing Stokes seeds, which are generated from the light passing through the Brilloun medium via an acousto-optic medium. To realize the scheme, the acousto-optic medium and the Brillouin medium should be of the same material, and the frequency of the transducer must be identical with the Brillouin shift. Essentially, the transducer and the acousto-optic medium constitute a special acousto-optic shifter. Calculations suggest that it is easy to reduce the SBS threshold by at least one magnitude and enhance the reflectivity remarkably by this scheme.