Li Fuquan

Laser-Induced Damage Growth on Larger-Aperture Fused Silica Optical Components at 351 nm

Laser-induced damage is a key lifetime limiter for optics in high-power laser facility. Damage initiation and growth under 351 nm high-fluence laser irradiation are observed on larger-aperture fused silica optics. The input surface of one fused silica component is damaged most severely and an explanation is presented. Obscurations and the area of a scratch on it are found to grow exponentially with the shot number. The area of damage site grows linearly. Micrographs of damage sites support the micro-explosion damage model which could be used to qualitatively explain the phenomena.

Self-polarization smoothing technique based on 2×2 beam array and type II+II third-harmonic generation system

Polarization smoothing (PS) is highly desired for inertial confinement fusion, high-power laser facilities. A self-PS technique based on 2×2 beam array and type II+II third-harmonic generation (THG) system is proposed in this paper. This scheme takes advantage of a type II+II THG system, which induces a 35° angle between the polarization states of output third-harmonic laser and input fundamental laser. It rotates two THG systems in a 2×2 beam array by 180° to obtain a 70° polarization angle between two sets of output lasers. Simulation results show that the intensity contrast of the overlapped focal spot can be reduced at 1.34× without inserting any additional optics. This approaches the maximum value of various PS techniques (i.e., 1.41×).

Experimental Observation of Near-Field Deterioration Induced by Stimulated Rotational Raman Scattering in Long Air Paths

We report the experimental investigation of a stimulated rotational Raman scattering effect in long air paths on SG-III TIL, with a 1053 nm, 20-cm-diameter, linearly polarized, 3 ns flat-topped laser pulse. An intense speckle pattern of near field with thickly dotted hot spots is observed at the end of propagation with an intensity-length product above 17TW/cm. The Stokes developing from the scattering of the laser beam by quantum fluctuations is characterized by a combination of high spatial frequency components. The observed speckle pattern with small-diameter hot spots results from the combination of the nonlinear Raman amplification and the linear diffraction propagation effect of the Stokes with a noise pattern arising from the spontaneous Raman scattering. A new promising suppression concept based on the special characteristic of the Stokes, called active and selective filtering of Stokes, is proposed.

Stimulated Brillouin Scattering Damage of Large-Aperture Fused Silica Grating

Laser induced damage experiment is carried out on a large aperture laser facility. Severe damage is observed on a large-aperture fused silica grating which presents dense craters on the front surface and six cracks alternatively located at the front and the rear surface. The bizarre fact about the damage on the grating is that, unlike other optics, the damage craters are almost on the front surface. According to observation, damage phenomenon is due to the stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) effect occurring in the grating, which includes the transverse SBS, the back SBS and the zigzag SBS.

Laser-induced damage on large-aperture fused silica gratings

Two sets of laser-damage experiments on large-aperture fused silica optics have been carried out in a high-power laser facility. Severe damage has been found on the grating which presented dense craters on the front surface. This phenomenon is quite different from other fused silica optics, which are damaged on the rear surface. The damage possibility due to the redeposition layer was ruled out by acid-etching the gratings front surface. The remarkable stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) effect was observed in grating and the reason for the front surface damage is thought to be the backward SBS.

Explanation of Laser-Induced Damage Behavior of Fused Silica in a Large-Aperture Laser using a Small-Aperture Damage Test

Laser-induced damage is a key lifetime limiter for optics in large laser facilities. Fused silica is tested to find the damage threshold on two different laser facilities of different apertures. The damage threshold shows that the corners of the component are less damage resistant. The acid etch on a corner does not effectively increase the damage threshold. A statistics-based model is presented to extrapolate the threshold data in a small-aperture test to predict the damage threshold under functional conditions.

Broadband Third-Harmonic Generation with a Composite KD*P Crystal

We predict that broadband efficient third-harmonic generation (THG) can be achieved with a frequency-doubling crystal and a novel composite KD*P tripler. The composite KD*P tripler is made of two partially deuterated KDP crystals with different deuteration levels by using the thermal bonding technique. The deuteration level of a partially deuterated KDP crystal is used as a degree of freedom to alter the phase-matching (PM) wavelength. Simulations show that the composite KD*P tripler can improve third-harmonic conversion efficiencies over a very wide band of input fundamental frequencies. In terms of robustness, alignment and stability, this THG scheme should be more promising than other broadband THG approaches because the composite KD*P tripler is a monolithic device.

Characteristics of Laser-Induced Surface Damage on Large-Aperture KDP Crystals at 351 nm

Laser-induced damage often determines the effective lifetime of an optic in large high-energy laser facilities. We present the damage performance on the rear surface of a large-aperture KDP crystal for 351 nm, 5 ns laser pulses. Surface damage shows a lower threshold than bulk damage after conditioning. Craters initiated on the scratch are found to increase with the shot number before filling the scratch. The experimental results reveal that damage initiation is mainly caused by extrinsic nanoabsorbers buried in the surface during the large-aperture laser operation.

Demonstration of Color Separation with 2ω KDP Wedge in High Power Laser Facilities

A 2ω wedge design is proposed with KDP crystal to disperse the unconverted light away from the target in a high power laser facility for inertial confinement fusion. The ultraviolet B-integral problem is released, and about 1.2 times in color separation angle is achieved according to both theoretical and experimental investigations when compared with conventional 3ω wedge. The frequency conversion efficiency is unaffected when the wedge is along the non-sensitive axis of the tripler.

Optical terminal analysis of a multigrating tiled compressor in a PW-class CPA-laser

In the highest-power chirped-pulse amplification lasers, the pulse must be stretched in time, amplified, compressed in a grating compressor and subsequently focused by off-axis parabola to obtain a high peak power. In the optical terminal, the temporal and spatial effects of mismatched multigrating tiled compressor on the far-field pulse are critical factors to be analysed. In this paper, a k-space raytracing model is proposed for the temporal and spatial analyses of possible errors in a four-grating single-pass tiled compressor. The results show that the last grating affects mainly the partial focal spot, while the middle two gratings affect the temporal waveform, and the partial focal spot needs much higher error control than that in the temporal domain in a picosecond pulse compression.