Shaping Brillouin Light in Specialty Optical Fibers

Abstract

Due to their strong light confinement capabilities, optical fibers were soon recognized as ideal waveguides to investigate and exploit the Brillouin scattering. This chapter provides an overview of Brillouin light scattering in specialty optical fibers in a way that is simultaneously accessible and technically comprehensive. It focuses on the new physics of Brillouin scattering in both tapered optical fibers and photonic crystal fibers. First, the chapter depicts a short history and describes some basic concepts of forward and backward Brillouin scattering. It then discusses the most important applications arising from fiber‐based Brillouin scattering and presents a recent theory of Brillouin scattering based on the elastodynamics equation. The chapter also applies it to the case of optical microwires and then to solid‐core microstructured optical fibers, revealing all new types of acoustic waves including shear, surface and hybrid waves. Finally, experimental measurements of both the forward and backward Brillouin spectra are presented.