Wavefront Shaping by a Small-Aperture Deformable Mirror in the Front Stage for High-Power Laser Systems

Lei Ding,Yirui Wang,Zhiwei Lu,Kai Wang,Xiusheng Yan,Yulei Wang,Can Cui,Sensen Li,Luoxian Zhou

doi:10.3390/app7040379

Abstract

We demonstrate a method for wavefront distribution compensation with a low-cost small-aperture deformable mirror in the front stage of a complex high-power solid-state laser system. Meanwhile, an iterative algorithm for improving wavefront quality is indicated. Using this method, the wavefront compensation was studied in our single-shot high-power laser system that operated with and without the main amplifiers, respectively. The wavefront was compensated effectively, showing the near-flopped-shape output with the peak-to-valley value of 0.29 λ and root meam square (RMS) of 0.06 λ at 1053 nm.

Highlights

High-power laser is of great interest for inertial confinement fusion [1,2,3], industrial processing [4,5], optoelectronic countermeasures [6], strong-field physics [7,8], and scientific research [9,10,11,12]
We propose low-cost active wavefront shaping by placing a small-aperture DM at the front end of a high-power laser system
The formula for the entire process is depicted as follows: φin ( x, y) + 2SDM ( x, y) + F ( x, y) = φout ( x, y) where SDM (x,y) is the surface distribution of the DM, and F(x,y) is the wavefront distortion caused by the laser system

Summary

Introduction

High-power laser is of great interest for inertial confinement fusion [1,2,3], industrial processing [4,5], optoelectronic countermeasures [6], strong-field physics [7,8], and scientific research [9,10,11,12]. As an important factor related to the beam quality, a uniform wavefront is conducive to maintaining the high quality spatial distribution in propagation. The wavefront is directly related to the far-field distribution of the output laser that influences the focused intensity as well as the alignment of the beam path in a high-power laser system (like spatial filter) [13]. It is necessary to control the wavefront in high-power laser systems, which can satisfy the basic requirements for laser transmission, focusing, and frequency conversion [16,17]. The factors causing wavefront distortion are various such as heat dissipation in gain medium and machining error of optical elements that are difficult to be suppressed, especially in a complex high-power laser system

Methods

Results

Conclusion