Chromatism compensation of the PETAL multipetawatt high-energy laser

Jérôme Neauport (1) , N Blanchot (1) , C Rouyer (1) , C Sauteret (2)

1 CESTA - Centre d'études scientifiques et techniques d'Aquitaine
2 LULI - Laboratoire pour l'utilisation des lasers intenses

High-energy petawatt lasers use series of spatial filters in their amplification section. The refractive lenses employed introduce longitudinal chromatism that can spatially and temporally distort the ultra-fast laser beam after focusing. To ensure optimum performances of petawatt laser facilities, these distortions need to be corrected. Several solutions using reflective, refractive, or diffractive optical components can be addressed. We give herein a review of these various possibilities with their application to the PETAL (Petawatt Aquitaine Laser at the Laser Integration Line facility) laser beamline and show that diffractive-based corrections appear to be the most promising.

Domains: Optics [physics.optics]; Optics / Photonic

Jérôme Neauport, N Blanchot, C Rouyer, C Sauteret. Chromatism compensation of the PETAL multipetawatt high-energy laser. Journal of Optics A: Pure and Applied Optics, 2007, ⟨10.1364/AO.46.001568⟩. ⟨cea-01217058⟩