大长宽比、变发散角光束二维变焦整形研究

为实现激光束形状的二维整形,同时灵活适应入射光束发散角、尺寸等参数的变化,提高光束质量,提出了一种适用于大长宽比、变发散角的激光束二维变焦整形方法。该方法利用光线变换矩阵方法分析光路,采用柱透镜、球透镜对光束进行二维变焦整形,通过镜片位置和间距的动态调节,实现对光束在x,y两个维度上的尺寸、发散角共四个参数各自独立的调整,实时校正激光束的低阶像差,使出射光束始终保持为预定状态。试验研究表明,该方法具有光路结构简单、综合像差小、调节范围大等优点,能够显著改善高功率激光器的光束质量,尤其适用于具有大长宽比增益区的板条激光器和化学激光器的输出光束整形。     

基于随机并行梯度下降方法的动态光束净化实验研究

高能激光系统中通常包含光束净化装置以对激光器出射光束的波前畸变进行连续校正.为研究随机并行梯度下降自适应光学方法在光束净化问题上的可行性,按算法运行时序连续改变37单元变形镜的面形,以在实验光路中引入高能激光器输出光束的常见动态波前畸变,同时采用随机并行梯度下降算法控制同一变形镜对此动态畸变进行校正.实验结果显示,在事先消除系统初始像差的情况下,系统分别以1 kHz和2 kHz的模拟迭代速率工作时,激光束的动态像差都得到了充分抑制,光束质量在整个校正时段内始终维持在较好水平.这表明随机并行梯度下降自适应光学方法应用在光束净化系统中是可行的.     

全固态Nd:YAG激光器热效应及输出光束波前像差分析

高功率全固态激光器的诸多腔内扰动因素均会直接影响到激光输出功率和光束质量。首先采用传输矩阵方法简要讨论了在稳定腔情形下热透镜焦距与本征模式光斑尺寸的关系。进一步采用Hartmann-Shack波前传感器和模式法波前重构,对二极管抽运全固态声光调Q激光器输出倍频光束质量进行了分析,得到前35阶Zernike像差系数、波前峰谷值和均方根等畸变参量,计算还可得到点扩散函数分布和环围能量曲线等,从而全面了解输出光束质量和动态像差特性。分析表明输出倍频光的波前Zernike像差主要集中在前15阶,由于晶体热效应及腔内其它扰动因素的影响,较显著波前像差有离焦系数Z_3、低阶像散Z_4和Z_5,以及球差Z_(10)等。     

内腔自适应光学系统校正激光器畸变

固体激光器中,增益介质由于热沉积产生的热畸变严重影响了激光器的稳定性、输出功率和光束质量。研究了一种内腔自适应光学系统校正激光器腔内畸变的方法,利用微机电变形反射镜作为固体激光器的内腔全反射镜,通过控制变形镜的面型改善激光器输出光束的模式及功率。从腔外引入的一束信标光通过激光器内腔后反射出腔外,用波前探测器可测得激光器工作时腔内畸变对此信标光的影响,并通过搭建的自适应光学系统平台可闭环校正此畸变。实验结果表明,闭环校正后,激光器的输出功率提高了近3倍,且激光光束质量得到了明显的改善。     

37单元双压电片变形镜板条激光光束净化

为了校正板条激光器输出光束波前像差,改善输出光束质量,提出了基于37单元双压电片变形镜的板条激光光束净化系统。采用柱面反射式单向扩束器使主振荡功率放大结构板条激光器输出光束尺寸与37单元双压电片变形镜有效口径相匹配,利用随机并行梯度下降算法控制双压电片变形镜面形,进行波前像差闭环校正,校正后光束远场归一化桶中功率提高到净化前的2~3倍。     

传导冷却端面泵浦板条放大器波前畸变数值研究

 利用数值模拟的方法分析了均匀冷却与非均匀冷却对传导冷却端面泵浦板条放大器波前畸变的影响,结果发现：信号光的波前畸变强烈依赖于zig-zag周期数,一定的光路可以将波前畸变减小到λ/10量级;板条长度方向散热不均匀及两块热沉之间散热能力的差异对波前畸变的影响很小,而宽度方向散热不均匀对波前畸变的影响较大;当宽度方向散热不均匀时,波前畸变主要为倾斜像差,输出光束的传输方向将发生偏折。因此,在非均匀冷却条件下,为了减小宽度方向散热不均匀性的影响,应选择反射次数较少的之字型光路。     

高功率激光器腔镜热变形对输出光束质量的影响

利用有限元分析法结合Fox-Li迭代法,考虑腔内本征模式与腔镜热形变的相互耦合作用,计算模拟了正支共焦非稳腔的本征模式分布,定量分析了高功率激光器腔镜热变形对输出光束质量的影响,重点讨论了腔镜热变形所引起的腔内本征模式相位特性的变化,并从波前功率谱密度、Zernike像差系数及光束质量值等角度对腔镜发生热形变前后的激光器输出光束的光束特性进行比较分析。研究结果表明:高功率激光器腔镜热形变对输出光束的光束质量会产生一定的影响,且随着激光输出功率的增大,镜面热形变引起的输出光束波前相位高频比例及Zernike高阶像差均会有所增大,波前畸变程度也明显变大,光束质量逐渐变差。     

直接液体冷却薄片激光器中抽运光均匀性对光束波前畸变的影响

近年来,直接液体冷却薄片激光器因其体积功率比小,热管理能力强等优势而成为研究热点.本文建立了一套直接液体冷却薄片激光器波前畸变的分析方法.应用该方法研究了直接液体冷却薄片激光器中抽运光均匀性对光束波前畸变的影响.计算分析了均匀性为92%, 80%和70%,且总的抽运功率不变时,激光器高阶像差分布情况.随着均匀性逐渐减弱,激光器中高阶像差逐渐增强,低阶像差量基本保持不变.实验中,设计加入波导和未加入波导结构,构建了均匀性为92%和70%的抽运光分布,分别测量了两种情况下的波前抖动情况以及波前畸变分布,抽运功率为5 k W时,测量获得了整个增益模块的光程差高阶分量(OPD_H),其畸变量均方根(RMS)值为0.66μm和0.79μm,实验结果和理论分析结果基本趋势一致.     

非均匀激光辐照下硅镜热变形对光束传输特性的影响

 使用有限元法计算了硅镜在DF化学激光器非稳腔输出的中空非均匀激光辐照下镜面温升和反射面面形随时间变化的特性,使用65阶Zernike多项式对镜面面形进行了曲面拟合,使用光线追迹的方法计算了平行光束经不同数量硅镜反射后的光束波前分布PV值、Strehl比和Zernike像差系数随时间变化的特性。计算结果表明：在典型的DF激光器输出的中空方形光束辐照下,硅反射镜的热变形将使反射光束产生波前畸变,波前畸变中,y方向像散项占据主要地位,其次是离焦项;随着激光系统中反射镜面数量的增加,高阶像差系数将逐渐增大,且波前PV值与反射次数成线性关系。     

组合变形镜对板条固体MOPA激光波前畸变校正（英）

提出了一种利用组合变形镜校正板条MOPA固体激光器像差的方法,并通过实验验证其有效性。通过将一个11单元的一维变形镜和一个67单元的二维变形镜组合,有效降低了单个二维变形镜波前校正过程中驱动器间的电压差,从而提高了二维变形镜的使用安全性,并在一定程度上改善了校正后波前畸变的空间分布,降低了波前畸变残差。实验结果表明,一维变形镜与二维变形镜的组合能高效地校正板条MOPA固体激光器的波前畸变,波前残差均方根值小于0.08 m,远场光束质量因子可达1.67。     

Near-diffraction-limited dark hollow beam generated by using a hybrid control way

We propose and demonstrate the generation of dark hollow beam with plane wavefront in the near field based on a hybrid control way by using dual phase only liquid crystal spatial light modulators (LC-SLMs). One phase only LC-SLM redistributes the intensity to the target distribution based on refractive beam shaping system and the other phase only LC-SLM adaptively compensates the wavefront of the output beam by using stochastic parallel gradient descent (SPGD) algorithm. Compared with conventional refractive beam shaping system, the hybrid control way can not only improve the far-field energy concentration of the output beam, but also can correct the phase distortion of the system. Influences of phase distortion on laser beam shaping are analyzed in detail. The theoretical and experimental results show that the near-diffraction-limited dark hollow beam can be successfully generated by using this hybrid control way. The power in the main lobe of the airy disk pattern area in the far field is 2.3 times larger than that without being adaptively compensated.     

The Characteristics of Wavefront and Far-Field Optical Pattern from High Power Laser Mirror

This paper presents the characteristics of wavefront and far-field optical pattern from high power laser mirror which suffered from thermal deformations. Zernike polynomials are introduced to describe aberrations of laser-induced thermal deformations. And, the far-field optical patterns of radiation are calculated by using Fourier transformation and measured by interference experiments. The result indicates that main aberrations are defocusing and primary coma, and that the tilt cannot be ignored. Some optical patterns and contour maps which depend on the laser beam power applied to the mirror and the exposure time are given. Finally a new clamping method is suggested, which can reduce the tilt of mirror and increase the pointing stability of high power laser beam.     

Influence of spherical aberrations on the performance of dynamically stable resonators

Spherical aberrations of thermal lens of the active media are severe when the solid state lasers are strongly pumped. The aberrations influence the mode profile, the diffraction loss, the output power and other laser beam properties, especially for a dynamically stable resonator with large TEM₀₀-mode volume. Self-consistent modes in a resonator with aberrations are calculated using Fox-Li diffraction iterative algorithm. There are side lobes with the fundamental mode when the spherical aberration is introduced, hence the beam quality is deteriorated. The calculated results agree well with the experimental data. The beam filling factor plays an important role in the design of a laser system. The optimum value of the beam filling factor should be determined by the experimental results according to the spherical aberration effect.     

Output beam drift and deformation in high-power COIL

During the operation of a chemical oxygen iodine laser (COIL) with an unstable resonator of a large Fresnel number, as the output power increases, an instability of the output laser beam will appear, behaving mainly as far-field beam spot drift and deformation. In order to interpret this phenomenon, thermal expansion analysis on the scraper with finite element analysis method and a simulation of the output beam mode of this kind of laser by the method of Fast Fourier Transform were developed. From the experimental measurement and the calculation, we proposed that the presence of the nonuniform temperature distribution of scraper causes the front surface of the scraper to tilt and bulge due to thermal expansion. As the output power is increasing, all the mirror surfaces, especially the scraper's, will absorb more and more heat, causing thermal expansion of the mirror front surface to occur more seriously, thus resulting in the tilting and deformation of the far-field beam spot. The initial misalignment of the direction is also an important factor leading to the far-field beam spot drift and deformation.     

Output characteristics analyses of a novel dual-slab laser with an off-axis one-sided stable-unstable resonator

A novel dual-slab laser with an off-axis one-sided stable-unstable resonator which can compensate for thermal distortion to some extent by flipping the optical beam is described in this paper. The output power,efficiency, and near-field and far-field intensity distributions of the dual-slab laser have been studied. The results indicate that the novel dual-slab laser has better performance than the normal dual-slab laser with the same off-axis one-sided stable-unstable resonator.     

拼接光栅的偏差对光束空间特性的影响

用拼接小尺寸多层介质膜衍射介质膜衍射光栅的办法制作大口径的高破坏阈值光栅成为解决拍瓦激光系统输出能量的关键技术———光栅拼接技术。拼接的每个光栅都存在五维自由度的偏差,对激光脉冲的空间特性和时间特性产生影响。用夫琅禾费衍射的方法分析了拼接光栅的偏差对光束空间特性的影响,建立了偏差和远场强度分布之间的函数关系并用数值方法进行模拟,得出角度偏差对光束远场分布的影响可以忽略,而位移偏差:光栅间拼缝和前后位移偏差是影响光束远场分布的关键因素。     

Transient thermal effect of high power laser mirrors and its propagating characters of far-field

The analytical solutions of the two-dimensional transient thermal effect of high power laser mirrors are developed by using integrate transform technique. Zernike polynomials are introduced to describe aberrations of laser-induced thermal deformations. And, the corresponding expressions of the Strehl ratio and the intensity distribution are gained. Some far-field optical patterns from which we can directly see the divergence of intensity are given. The predicted results are in agreement with that of experiment.     

Effects of the deformation of reflection volume Bragg gratings on the M-factor of super-Gaussian laser beams

When high-power laser beams pass through a volume Bragg grating (VBG), the surface of VBG occurs distortion because of thermal effects, and it results in the decline of the grating’s performance. Considering distortion of the surface induces differences of the index and period, the scalar wave equations for super-Gaussian (SG) laser beams propagating in the reflection VBG have been solved by using finite-different and sparse matrix methods. The changes of the total power reflection coefficient, the beam width, the far-field beam angle and the M²-factor for the laser beams through the reflection VBG with deformation have been analyzed quantitatively. It can be shown that the deformation of the VBG affects evidently on the intensity and phase distributions, the total power reflection coefficient, the beam width, the far-field divergence angle and the M²-factor. The beam width, the far-field divergence angle, and the M²-factor of the output beams increase significantly with the distortions of the grating. The influence of the distortions of the VBG on the power reflection coefficient, the far-field divergence angle and the M²-factor of the output beams are smaller for higher beam orders.     

高能激光系统内光路热效应建模与仿真

高能激光系统内光路热效应是影响系统性能的重要因素,介绍了内光路中光学元件、介质气体热效应物理模型,分析了影响热效应的主要因素,并开展了热效应变化规律研究。针对光学元件,重点研究了元件吸收率、元件材料特性、光斑分布对反射镜、窗口镜、分光镜热像差的影响规律,指出吸收率主要影响热像差的大小,而元件基底材料特性和激光分布影响热像差时间和空间变化。针对介质气体,指出介质气体升温后重力引起的自然对流是影响气体热像差的主要物理因素,细致研究了热像差随时间的变化规律,介绍了降低封闭与开放式内光路介质气体热像差的措施与方法。介绍了激光仿真软件平台Easylaser多物理仿真模块,搭建了包含反射镜、窗口镜、分光镜和介质气体的内光路计算模型,通过光-热-力-控多物理耦合仿真,研究了反射镜与窗口镜、介质气体与窗口镜热像差补偿效应,给出了激光传输远场光斑特征,表明了Easylaser的多物理仿真模块具备对内光路热效应综合仿真分析能力。