https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/20135907006
Improvement of the spatial and temporal contrast of short-pulse KrF laser beams
1 University of Szeged, Department of Experimental Physics, Szeged, Hungary
2 Wigner Research Centre for Nuclear Physics, Association EURATOM HAS, Budapest, Hungary
a e-mail: foldes.istvan@wigner.mta.hu
Published online: 15 November 2013
Important figure of merit of high-intensity laser systems is the temporal and spatial quality of their pulses. Spatial filtering is a well known technique to improve the spatial quality by modulating the spatial components at the Fourier-plane, using a pinhole of appropriate size or recently by a nonlinear process. Modulation of the beam in the Fourier-plane allows however a simultaneous spatial and temporal filtering. By the use of a “conjugate” pinhole arrangement before and after the nonlinear spatial selector, intensity dependent transmission is obtained: the low intensity part is efficiently suppressed. Numerical calculations predict practical operation for both amplitude and phase modulation at the Fourier-plane. In the preferred latter case the experimental observations are in good agreement with the theory, demonstrating >40% throughput.
© Owned by the authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2013
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