The present invention relates to grating array systems, which are made up of a plurality of individual gratings, and methods of making such systems so as to present an aperture for incident light to be diffracted by the gratings which is the same as a single monolithic grating having the same aperture, and which allows the energy from each grating in the array to add coherently to the energy from adjacent gratings in the array, the gratings in the array thereby being operative in a coherently additive mode.
Many grating applications such as high-powered chirp-pulse laser amplifiers require large, for example meter sized, gratings to achieve desired energy levels while limiting fluences to below damaged threshold of the grating surfaces. The cost of grating systems militates against the use of large gratings, and makes a system having a plurality of gratings arranged as tiles to provide a grating array, a desirable, cost effective approach.
It is self-evident that tiled gratings act as a larger grating. However, merely arranging the gratings as tiles does not provide a system, which acts like a single monolithic grating in a coherently additive mode where the light diffracted from each grating is in phase, much like coherent light from a laser. The problem arises because the individual grating tiles have many degrees of freedom including lateral motion, tip, tilt and rotation in the plane of the grating along the direction of the grooves. Moreover, the motions in each degree of freedom are interactive. Accordingly, the problem of providing grating arrays of tiled gratings operative in coherently additive mode is not readily amenable of solution. A practical mechanism for providing coherently additive grating in an array which corrects for relative displacement and rotation errors is not disclosed or apparent merely from showings of tiled gratings. For example in an article by Zhang, Yonemura and Kato, in Optics Communications 145 (1998) 367–376, entitled “An Array Grating Compressor For High-Powered Chirp-Pulsed Amplification Lasers, recognition of the need for such a practical mechanism leads to the statement in the last sentence of the article “The fabrication of the array grating would be difficult because of the alignment errors, and a new fabricating technique would be required”. No such technique is disclosed in this article.
The present invention provides a grating array system having a plurality of gratings which are operative in a coherently additive mode by controlling piston shift (the relative movement of one grating with respect to the other in a direction perpendicular to the plane of the grating) wherein the effective lateral shift L and the effective piston shift P satisfy the following equations (1) OPDL=−OPDP, where Δx=L−Md, OPDL=Δx(λ/d); Δz=P−Nλ, and OPDP=2(Δz)cos θr, wherein L is the lateral shift between gratings (also called LS herein), M is an integer, x is movement in the lateral direction, d is the grating pitch, λ is the wavelength of light, which is the average wavelength for polychromatic light, OPD is the optical path difference, P is the piston shift, N is any integer, z is the movement in the piston shift direction (perpendicular to the plane of the gratings, and θr is the rotation of one grating with respect to each other about a line perpendicular to the grating plane; (2) Rotation angle, Δθr=(−) Tip angle Δθy*ctg incidence angle, θi; and (3) Tip angle, Δθx=0. In all the equations Δ is the change in x, y, z, θx, θr and Δθy, as the case may be.
The piston shifts may be obtained by three actuators along opposite sides and along an end of the grating which is to be adjusted. These actuators have a surface which define the plane of the grating. By adjusting the piston shift in response to an interferogram of the diffracted light from the gratings and reference illumination, and from a diffraction limited spot to which the diffracted light from the gratings is focused in the far field, the conditions for operation in the coherently additive mode is obtained. The actuators are adjusted until the interferogram shows that the diffracted light from both gratings is in phase and the spot is a single peak diffraction limited spot.
Accordingly, it is a feature of the present invention to provide improved grating array systems for the control of the spatial and temporal characteristics of light diffracted from the gratings of the array.
It is a further feature of the invention to provide an improved grating array system, and method of making same, wherein the gratings are operative in coherently additive mode.
It is still a further feature of the invention to provide a grating array system, operative in a coherently additive mode, which is capable of handling higher energy and power levels (fluences) than currently available single or monolithic gratings.
It is a still further feature of the present invention to provide a grating array system which enables, in the event of laser damage to one of the grating tiles, the replacement of that tile without replacing the entire grating.
The foregoing advantages and features and objects of the invention will become more apparent from a reading of the following description in connection with the accompanying drawings wherein:
Referring more particularly to the drawings, in
As the description proceeds, it will also become apparent how the herein described system aligns the gratings for operation in the additive coherent mode. The principal parts of the system are:
1. An assembly of the gratings G1 and G2 on active actuators 16, 18, and 20 which are operative to reduce the from five to three the degrees of freedom of movement of the gratings G1 with respect to G2. These are piston movement of the actuators 16, 18, and 20. The degrees of freedom are tip, tilt, rotation, lateral-shift and piston motion between the gratings.
2. An interferometric sensor 28 (
3. A sensor 36 (
4. Alternatively, the system may use a set of capacitive sensors (
The apparatus and method of accommodating the five degrees freedom with only three actuators 16, 18, and 20 is an important feature of the invention enabling the alignment of the gratings for operation in the additive coherent mode. Table 1 shows the 5 degrees of freedom and their effect on the optical path difference (OPD) which when set to zero by the actuators compensates for errors in each of the 5 degrees of freedom. The table shows that the adjustment provided by only three actuators which control the piston displacement (P) the vertical tip (TV) and the horizontal tilt (TH) compensates or adjusts the gratings for coherent operation. Table 1 also shows the interaction between the degrees of freedom. Although the adjustments are highly interactive, the system accommodates such interactivity and aligns the gratings for operation in the additive coherent mode.
More particularly, as shown in
Consider a collimated beam incident upon pair of gratings G1 and G2. There is optical compensation between a change in the lateral shift, Δx, and a change in the piston, Δz. Also, a change in the grating rotation, Δθ, can be compensated for by a change in the vertical tip, Δθy. The exact mathematical conditions for additive coherent operation are shown, the equations forming part of
The compensating nature of these terms, as explained above, leads to a reduction in the degrees of freedom that need to be controlled. The parameters adjusted to achieve coherent addition are piston, Δz; vertical tip, Γθy; and horizontal tilt, Δθx. Table I summarizes the compensations and the active adjustments. All these adjustments are accomplished with the actuators 16, 18 and 20 which only move in a vertical (up/down) direction.
Table I shows the interaction between degrees of freedom at an angle of incidence near the Littrow position, and the parameters that are adjusted to achieve coherent addition.
It is desirable to initially set the grating within the range where the actuators are effective to provide corrections for additive coherent operations. To this end, the gratings are mounted, on their support-plates to mechanical tolerances. A coordinate measuring machine, or suitable indicators on a surface plate may aid in aligning the grating edges, and the grating-planes to within a few micrometers, as shown in
Another initial adjustment may also check and adjust, if necessary, the rotation between the gratings. See
In addition, a beam splitter 34 takes a portion of the interferometer beam and directs it through a lens, 35, onto a CCD camera 36. At the camera 36, a far field, diffraction limited focal spot containing information from both gratings is presented. The spot is a measure of the coherent addition. The CCD sends a signal representing the shape of the spot to the system's computer which computes the Strehl Ratio, and provides a status of the functioning of the grating array system. The Strehl Ratio may be defined as the ratio of the light intensity at the peak of the diffraction pattern of an aberrated image, to that of the peak of an aberration free image. In the desired case, the focal spot is a diffraction limited spot with a Strehl Ratio of 1. For a half-wave misalignment in piston between the gratings, for example, the Strehl Ratio drops to 0.5.
Also depicted in
Another embodiment of the invention is shown in
From the foregoing description, it will be apparent that there has been provided improved grating array systems and methods of making such systems. Variations and modifications in the herein described systems and methods in accordance with the invention will undoubtedly suggest themselves to one skilled in the art. Accordingly, the foregoing description should be taken as illustrative and not in a limiting sense.
Priority is claimed to U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/469,739, filed May 12, 2003, which is herein incorporated by reference.
The United States Government has rights in this invention under an Agreement DE-FC03-92SF19460 between the U.S. Department of Energy and The University of Rochester.
Number | Date | Country | |
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20040227956 A1 | Nov 2004 | US |
Number | Date | Country | |
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60469739 | May 2003 | US |