Acta Optica Sinica, Volume. 40, Issue 2, 0232001(2020)

Focal Spot Deterioration Analysis of Plasma Mirrors in High-Power Ultrashort Laser Systems

Dongjun Zhang1,2, Ping Zhu1、**, Xinglong Xie1、*, Jun Kang1, Qingwei Yang1, Haidong Zhu1, Ailin Guo1, Meizhi Sun1, Qi Gao1, and Jianqiang Zhu1
Author Affiliations
  • 1Key Laboratory of High Power Laser and Physics, Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 201800, China
  • 2Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
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    Plasma mirrors can be effectively used to improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of high-power ultrashort laser; however, some experiments conducted using plasma mirrors denote that plasma mirrors may cause focal spot deterioration. Herein, we establish a spatiotemporal focusing multistep propagation algorithm based on plasma expansion and diffraction propagation to quantitatively investigate the plasma-mirror-induced focal spot deterioration. Further, the influences of the plasma expansion time as well as the amplitude and spatial frequency of wavefront error on focal spot deterioration are quantitatively analyzed using a beam quality evaluation function. The simulation results reveal that the plasma-mirror-induced far-field focal spot deterioration can be mainly attributed to the non-uniform plasma expansion based on the plasma expansion time and wavefront error, with the plasma expansion time observed to be the dominant factor. Additionally, higher-amplitude and lower-spatial-frequency wavefront errors have a relatively greater influence on the focusing ability. From the perspective of high SNR ultraintense output capability, the spatiotemporal quality requirement of the pulse is introduced to avoid far-field focal spot deterioration when a plasma mirror is used in a high-power ultrashort laser system.

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    Dongjun Zhang, Ping Zhu, Xinglong Xie, Jun Kang, Qingwei Yang, Haidong Zhu, Ailin Guo, Meizhi Sun, Qi Gao, Jianqiang Zhu. Focal Spot Deterioration Analysis of Plasma Mirrors in High-Power Ultrashort Laser Systems[J]. Acta Optica Sinica, 2020, 40(2): 0232001

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    Paper Information

    Category: Ultrafast Optics

    Received: Jul. 8, 2019

    Accepted: Sep. 9, 2019

    Published Online: Jan. 2, 2020

    The Author Email: Zhu Ping (zhp1990@siom.ac.cn)

    DOI:10.3788/AOS202040.0232001

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