High-quality wavefront control in high-energy laser using a robust dual-deformable-mirror adaptive optics system

Area of Science:

• Lasers and Optics
• Materials Science

Background:

• High-repetition-rate nanosecond pulsed diode-pumped solid-state lasers (DPSSLs) are crucial for scientific and industrial uses.
• A compact 10 J DPSSL system exhibited limited beam quality at room temperature.

Purpose of the Study:

• To enhance the beam quality of a DPSSL system.
• To develop a robust and practical adaptive optics (AO) control method for multiple deformable mirrors (DMs).

Main Methods:

• Implementation of a dual-deformable-mirror (DM) adaptive optics (AO) system.
• Development of a successive trust-region iterative method for collaborative DM control.
• Experimental validation on a 100 Hz, 10 J DPSSL system.

Main Results:

• Achieved a beam quality of approximately 2.2/1.8 times the diffraction limit (X/Y).
• Reduced wavefront distortion by over an order of magnitude.
• Increased peak energy density by more than 17-fold.

Conclusions:

• The developed multi-DM AO system and control method significantly improve DPSSL beam quality.
• The control approach is stable, robust, and facilitates rapid deployment.
• This framework supports high-beam-quality applications in high-energy laser systems and optical platforms.