基于涡旋光束的超快速角向集束匀滑方案

针对惯性约束聚变装置对激光集束辐照均匀性的需求,提出了一种基于涡旋光束的超快速角向匀滑方案,即利用螺旋相位板使2×2集束中的两子束由超高斯光束变换为涡旋光束,而其余两子束不变,进而通过对子束偏振态和中心波长的调控,使集束中的涡旋光束和超高斯光束在靶面两两相干叠加.相干叠加后的焦斑以皮秒量级为周期超快速旋转,从而在极短时间内快速抹平焦斑强度调制,改善靶面辐照均匀性.通过建立基于螺旋相位板的激光超快速角向集束匀滑方案的物理模型,分析了其角向匀滑特性,并与光谱角色散技术和径向匀滑技术进行了比较分析.结果表明,这一新型激光集束匀滑方案能实现对焦斑的超快速角向匀滑,且能在数皮秒时间内达到最佳辐照均匀性.

Ultrafast azimuthal beam smoothing scheme based on vortex beam

The illumination uniformity of laser beams in inertial confinement fusion (ICF) facility is a key factor, which plays a crucial role in suppressing the laser plasma instabilities. However, the prevailing beam smoothing techniques cannot meet all the requirements for improving the irradiance uniformity of laser beams and mitigating the laser plasma instabilities, which are determined by the high-frequency spatial modulations and the fine-scale speckles of the focal spots. An ultrafast azimuthal beam smoothing scheme based on vortex beams is proposed in this paper. In this scheme, two of the four beams in a laser quad are transformed from super-Gaussian (SG) beams into vortex beams by inserting two spiral phase plates with opposite topological charges into the beam path, whereas the other two SG beams remain unchanged. By controlling the polarization and the center wavelength of each beam, the SG beam and the transformed vortex beam in the quad are coherently superposed on the target plane, so are the remaining two beams. Owing to the difference in central wavelength and the existence of the topological charges, two focal spots rotating in a period of a few picoseconds are generated in the target plane, which can redistribute the speckles quickly in temporal domain and thus improve the irradiance uniformity of the laser quad. By establishing the physical model of the azimuthal smoothing scheme, the smoothing characteristics including the rotation period, the illumination uniformity and the fractional-power-above-intensity of the focal spots are analyzed in detail. In order to improve the smoothing characteristics significantly, the novel smoothing scheme is further combined with another ultrafast smoothing scheme, i.e. radial smoothing scheme. The influence of the key parameters of the combined smoothing scheme on the illumination uniformity and on the smoothing velocity are discussed. Results indicate that the azimuthal smoothing scheme can achieve the ultrafast smooth of the laser quad in the azimuthal direction and the best illumination uniformity within a few picoseconds as well. Though the degree of improvement in the irradiance uniformity of the azimuthal smoothing scheme is lower than that of the radial smoothing, the combination of these two schemes can improve the uniformity effectively and rapidly. The novel smoothing scheme provides a potential smoothing approach for the high-power laser facilities.