Steady-state stimulated Raman scattering by a multimode laser

The development of the Stokes spectrum and the dependence of Raman gain upon pump laser bandwidth in a narrow linewidth Raman medium are analyzed in terms of a closed set of multimode equations. The analysis predicts that the Stokes gain coefficient takes on its maximum value, which is independent of bandwidth, when the Stokes spectrum replicates the pump spectrum. It is also shown that in the absence of dispersion the spectrum of a weak Stokes wave is driven to duplicate the pump spectrum, and that for noise input the average power generated in the Stokes wave is independent of the pump bandwidth.