Study on the near field modulation and laser induced damage of beam sampling grating

Abstract

The beam sampling grating (BSG) is one kind of important diffractive optical elements which is used in sampling and diagnosis. In terminal optical system of the inertial confinement fusion (ICF) system, the modulation produced by strong laser in the near field, may cause laser induced damage to the BSG. It makes the element work abnormally. In order to provide the theoretical basis for protecting this kind of optical element from laser induced damage under the strong laser condition, this paper uses the Fourier modal theory to carry on the numerical simulation of the interior modulation for BSG in near field. The results indicate that the interior modulation of BSG is weak, but the optical field distribution is still not even, thus in these areas the damage probability is higher than in other positions. Moreover, through the fabrication error analysis of BSG, the relationship between modulation in near field and fabrication error was obtained. The computed results indicate that the depth error and the duty cycle error of grooves affect the modulation of the light beam in near field, but the influence of groove depth error is larger than the duty cycle error. However, if the groove depth error does not exceed a definite value, its modulation also remains on a lower level. Therefore the BSG can still work in the ICF driver normally.