Strong coupling between phonons and optical beating in backward Brillouin scattering

Brillouin scattering is a fundamental nonlinear interaction between two optical waves and an acoustic wave mediated by electrostriction and photoelasticity. In this paper, we revisit the usual theory of this inelastic scattering to get a joint system in which the acoustic wave is strongly coupled to the interference pattern between the optical waves. We show in particular that when the coupling rate exceeds the phonon damping rate, the system enters the strong-coupling regime, giving rise to anticrossing in the dispersion relation and Rabi-like splitting. We further find numerically that strong coupling can, in principle, be observed using backward Brillouin scattering in subwavelength-diameter optical waveguides.