Polarization smoothing for single beam by a nematic liquid crystal scrambler

Polarization smoothing (PS) is a key approach to suppress laser plasma instabilities (LPI) in inertial confinement fusion (ICF) experiments. Here, we propose a liquid crystal (LC) PS element to realize single beam smoothing and demonstrate its smoothing effect, in principle, with a 2×2 LC polarizati...

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Published inApplied optics. Optical technology and biomedical optics Vol. 56; no. 29; p. 8087
Main Authors Wang, Yuancheng, Wang, Fang, Zhang, Ying, Huang, Xiaoxia, Hu, Dongxia, Zheng, Wanguo, Zhu, Rihong, Deng, Xuewei
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 10.10.2017
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Summary:Polarization smoothing (PS) is a key approach to suppress laser plasma instabilities (LPI) in inertial confinement fusion (ICF) experiments. Here, we propose a liquid crystal (LC) PS element to realize single beam smoothing and demonstrate its smoothing effect, in principle, with a 2×2 LC polarization checkerboard, which reduces the laser intensity variation in the focal spot to 78.4%. LC PS elements, which have potential applications in high-power ICF laser drivers, have many advantages because they are easy to fabricate, cost effective, flexible, and large.
ISSN:2155-3165
DOI:10.1364/AO.56.008087