High-power continuous wave deuterium fluoride/hydrogen fluoride chemical laser

Abstract

The invention discloses a high-power continuous wave deuterium fluoride/hydrogen fluoride chemical laser. The high-power continuous wave deuterium fluoride/hydrogen fluoride chemical laser comprises a main oscillator and 2N+1 amplification levels arranged at the back of the main oscillator, wherein the N is a nonnegative integer, the main oscillator mainly comprises an unstable resonator mirror and a gain module, and one light beam overturning device is at least arranged on an optical path between the first level of the 2N+1 amplification levels and the main oscillator and/or an optical path between any two adjacent amplification levels. The high-power continuous wave deuterium fluoride/hydrogen fluoride chemical laser disclosed by the invention has a function of correcting deviation of transmission directions of light beams, has capabilities of light intensity homogenization and stray light inhibition, and can be used for outputting high-quality laser beams.

Description

technical field [0001] The invention relates to the field of laser technology, in particular to a deuterium fluoride / hydrogen fluoride chemical laser. Background technique [0002] Deuterium fluoride / hydrogen fluoride laser is currently the high-energy laser device with the largest continuous wave output power, and has important application value. In order to further expand the application range of deuterium fluoride / hydrogen fluoride lasers, the output power level of deuterium fluoride / hydrogen fluoride lasers needs to be further improved. There are two technical approaches to increase the power level of deuterium fluoride / hydrogen fluoride lasers. One is to use the previous single-cavity solution and only increase the number of gain modules. However, this method makes the power load on the cavity mirror too large and the laser operation The risk of thermal damage to the cavity mirror is very high, so the use of a single resonator solution can only be of practical applicat...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

[0003] However, experiments have found that the existing high-power continuous wave deuterium fluoride / hydrogen fluoride laser using the MOPA scheme has the following three problems, resulting in low quality laser output beams

[0004] One is that the distribution of the gain medium of the deuterium fluoride / hydrogen fluoride laser along the direction of the flow field is non-uniform, so the output light intensity distribution is not uniform

At high output power levels, the non-uniform light intensity distribution will cause large high-order aberrations on the mirror surface, and these high-order aberrations cannot be effectively compensated by the adaptive optics system, resulting in a decrease in the quality of the output beam

[0005] Second, because the output light intensity distribution has the characteristics of strong upstream and weak downstream, the non-uniform spot irradiation with high power density will produce large oblique aberration on the mirror surface, making the laser beam transmission direction deviate from the design value, due to the length of the amplification stage Longer, weak inclination will cause the light beam to irradiate the mirror frame of the next reflector when the beam travels through a long distance, and the thermal deformation of the mirror frame caused by it will also cause the lens to further produce a large-angle misalignment

[0006] The third is that the length of the amplification stage is about several meters, and the beam output by the main oscillation stage is a hollow beam, so the effect of amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) is significant. After multiple amplification stages, strong stray light is generated in the beam. These Strong stray light will cause difficulties in thermal management of the laser. Stray light has a heating effect on the frame, and the thermal deformation of the frame caused by it will also cause a large-angle misalignment of the lens, making the beam transmission direction seriously deviate from the design value, or even exceed the self-adaptive The correction range of the optical system will eventually cause a decrease in the quality of the output beam

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