Bragg diffraction of multilayer volume holographic gratings under ultrashort laser pulse readout

The multilayer coupled wave theory is extended to systematically investigate the diffraction properties of multilayer volume holographic gratings (MVHGs) under ultrashort laser pulse readout. Solutions for the diffracted and transmitted intensities, diffraction efficiency, and the grating bandwidth are obtained in transmission MVHGs. It is shown that the diffraction characteristics depend not only on the input pulse duration but also on the number and thickness of grating layers and the gaps between holographic layers. This analysis can be implemented as a useful tool to aid with the design of multilayer volume grating-based devices employed in optical communications, pulse shaping, and processing. (C) 2008 Optical Society of America

Effects of the frequency chirp on the fields of a chirped Gaussian pulse passing through a hard-edged aperture

Based on the Huygens-Fresnel diffraction integral and Fourier transform, propagation expression of a chirped Gaussian pulse passing through a hard-edged aperture is derived. Intensity distributions of the pulse with different frequency chirp in the near-field and far-field are analyzed in detail by numerical calculations. In the near-field, amplitudes of the intensity peaks generated by the modulation of the hard-edged aperture decrease with increasing the frequency chirp, which results in the improving of the beam uniformity. A physical explanation for the smoothing effect brought by increasing the frequency chirp is given. The smoothing effect is achieved not only in the pulse with Gaussian transverse profile but also in the pulse with Hermite-Gaussian transverse profile when the frequency chirp increases. (C) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

钛宝石强激光负载的有机硅复合凝胶增透膜研究

以硅酸四乙酯(TEOS)和甲基三乙氧基硅烷(MTEOS)为前驱材料，用溶胶-凝胶(sol-gel)方法在钛宝石表面制备得到均匀性良好且具有高激光损伤阈值的有机硅复合凝胶增透膜。膜层在钛宝石激光器输出波段(750～850nm)的增透效果显著，其平均透过率超过98．6％；激光破坏阈值为2．2J／cm^2(800nm，300ps)；膜层表面均匀性达到激光波面的要求，在皮秒、飞秒超短脉冲高功率激光领域具有应用价值。溶胶的性能测试结果表明，溶胶粘度和成膜折射率均随溶液中CH3SiO1.5溶胶体含量的增加而增大，而膜

Influence of the chirp on the intensity distributions of an apertured pulse

Starting from the Huygens-Fresnel diffraction integral and the Fourier transform, the propagation expression of a chirped pulse passing through a hard-edged aperture is derived. Using the obtained expression, the intensity distributions of the pulse with different chirp in the near and far fields are analyzed in detail. Due to the modulation of the aperture, many intensity peaks emerge in the intensity distributions of the chirped pulse in the near field. However, the amplitudes of the intensity peaks decrease on increasing the chirp, which results in the smoothing effect in the intensity distributions. The beam smoothing brought by increasing the chirp is explained physically. Also, it is found that the radius of the intensity distribution of the chirped pulse decreases when the chirp increases in the far field. (c) 2005 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

Temporal-space-transforming pulse-shaping system with a knife-edge apparatus for a high-energy laser facility

For the first time to our knowledge, in a high-energy laser facility with an output energy of 454.37 J, by using a temporal-space-transforming pulse-shaping system with our own design of a knife-edge apparatus, we obtained a quasi-square laser pulse. (c) 2005 Optical Society of America.

Split-aperture laser pulse compressor design tolerant to alignment and line-density differences

We introduce a four-pass laser pulse compressor design based on two grating apertures with two gratings per aperture that is tolerant to some alignment errors and, importantly, to grating-to-grating period variations. Each half-beam samples each grating in a diamond-shaped compressor that is symmetric about a central bisecting plane. For any given grating, the two half-beams impinge on opposite sides of its surface normal. It is shown that the two split beams have no pointing difference from paired gratings with different periods. Furthermore, no phase shift between half-beams is incurred as long as the planes containing a grating line and the surface normal for each grating of the pair are parallel. For grating pairs satisfying this condition, gratings surfaces need not be on the same plane, as changes in the gap between the two can compensate to bring the beams back in phase. © 2008 Optical Society of America.

Optimization of Pulse Temporal Contrast in Optical Parametric Chirped Pulse Amplification

In optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA), the degradation of temporal contrast of the compressed signal pulse mainly results from spectral clipping in the grating stretcher with finite size of the optics, parametric fluorescence (PF) and the spectral variations transferred from temporal fluctuation of the pump pulse. The temporal contrast of the recompressed amplified pulse in the OPCPA system is studied numerically and a number of solutions are considered and optimized to achieve the highest temporal contrast.