Abstract
We report successful compensation of the thermally induced laser beam distortion associated with high energy 110 mJ and high average power femtosecond laser system of 11 Watts operated with vacuum compressor gratings. To enhance laser-based light source brightness requires development of laser systems with higher energy and higher average power. Managing the high thermal loading on vacuum optical components is a key issue in the implementation of this approach. To our knowledge this is the first time that such thermal induced distortions on the vacuum compressor gratings are characterized and compensated.
Highlights
High energy, femtosecond laser pulses can attain high intensities when focused on target to produce secondary light sources covering a wide energy range from THz radiation up to hard x-rays
Light source brightness is an important factor for many measurements techniques such as phase contrast imaging. 2D imaging has been demonstrated with laser-produced plasma Kα X-ray source [1]
To develop the generation of laser based source with high average brightness, it has recently been proposed to build a laser for biomedical imaging with 100 TW of instantaneous power, 100 Hz repetition rate and 400 W of average power [16]. It is crucial for the development of this new generation of laser-based light sources to investigate the technical issues involved in operating such high energy and high power laser systems
Summary
Femtosecond laser pulses can attain high intensities when focused on target to produce secondary light sources covering a wide energy range from THz radiation up to hard x-rays. To develop the generation of laser based source with high average brightness, it has recently been proposed to build a laser for biomedical imaging with 100 TW of instantaneous power, 100 Hz repetition rate and 400 W of average power [16] It is crucial for the development of this new generation of laser-based light sources to investigate the technical issues involved in operating such high energy and high power laser systems. In this respect, it is of prime importance to ensure that its optical elements will not degrade the energy profile and the quality of the beam wavefront which can affect directly the quality of the laser spot. We propose a simple way to compensate for this distortion so as to achieve a constant average x-ray flux over long periods of time
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