Design of a single glass tube optical lens for soft X-ray laser decoherence

Abstract

Laser has the advantages of high brightness, good monochromaticity, high coherence and good directionality, however, in some cases such as laser imaging and laser processing where only its high brightness or high monochromaticity is desired, the interference effect caused by high coherence can affect and limit its effective applications. In this work, a new single glass tube decoherence lens (SGTDL) is designed for soft X-ray laser decoherence through the simulation calculations. The simulation results show that an SGTDL with an entrance diameter of 5 mm, exit diameter of 0.6 mm and a length of 15 cm can effectively reduce the coherence of the X-ray laser with a wavelength of 10 nm and a beam waist radius of 1.25 mm. At the same time, the exit beam with a divergence range of 30–50 mrad is obtained at the SGTDL’s exit, and the transmission efficiency and gain in power density of the SGTDL are 78% and 52.74, respectively. For a laser beam with a wavelength of up to 1 nm, this model of SGTDL can maintain the transmission efficiency of the beam at more than 30%. This work also discusses the influence of the X-ray laser energy and the SGTDL’s length on the transmission performances of the SGTDL. The results show that the SGTDL designed according to the total reflection principle can meet the application requirements for laser decoherence in a range from the extreme ultraviolet to X-ray wavelength, and has a wide application prospect in X-ray laser imaging, laser processing, etc.