  The wealth of work in backward Raman amplification in plasma has focused on
the extreme intensity limit, however backward Raman amplification may also
provide an effective and practical mechanism for generating intense, broad
bandwidth, long-wavelength infrared radiation (LWIR). An electromagnetic
simulation coupled with a relativistic cold fluid plasma model is used to
demonstrate the generation of picosecond pulses at a wavelength of 10 microns
with terawatt powers through backward Raman amplification. The effects of
collisional damping, Landau damping, pump depletion, and wave breaking are
examined, as well as the resulting design considerations for a LWIR Raman
amplifier.
