In high-power laser system, the surface wavefront of large optics has a close link with its structure design and mounting method. The back-support transport mirror design is presently being investigated as a means in China’s high-power laser system to hold the optical component firmly while minimizing the distortion of its reflecting surface. We have proposed a comprehensive analytical framework integrated numerical modeling and precise metrology for the mirror’s mounting performance evaluation while treating the surface distortion as a key decision variable. The combination of numerical simulation and field tests demonstrates that the comprehensive analytical framework provides a detailed and accurate approach to evaluate the performance of the transport mirror. It is also verified that the back-support transport mirror is effectively compatible with state-of-the-art optical quality specifications. This study will pave the way for future research to solidify the design of back-support large laser optics in China’s next generation inertial confinement fusion facility.
Surface control and phase matching of large laser conversion optics are urgent requirements and huge challenges in high-power solid-state laser facilities. A self-adaptive, nanocompensating mounting configuration of a large aperture potassium dihydrogen phosphate (KDP) frequency doubler is proposed based on a lever-type surface correction mechanism. A mechanical, numerical, and optical model is developed and employed to evaluate comprehensive performance of this mounting method. The results validate the method’s advantages of surface adjustment and phase matching improvement. In addition, the optimal value of the modulation force is figured out through a series of simulations and calculations.
In phase measuring deflectometry, two orthogonal sinusoidal fringe patterns are separately projected on the test surface and the distorted fringes reflected by the surface are recorded, each with a sequential phase shift. Then the two components of the local surface gradients are obtained by triangulation. It usually involves some complicated and time-consuming procedures (fringe projection in the orthogonal directions, accurate phase shifting).To avoid the complex process, a novel phase extraction algorithm with crossed fringes is presented in this paper. It is based on a least-squares iterative process. Both a numerical simulation and a preliminary experiment are conducted to verify the validity and performance of this algorithm. Experimental results obtained by our method are shown, and comparisons between our experimental results and those obtained by the traditional phase-shifting algorithm and between our experimental results and those measured by the Fizeau interferometer are made.
KEYWORDS: Analytical research, Laser systems engineering, Zemax, MATLAB, High power lasers, Monte Carlo methods, Error analysis, Mirrors, Interfaces, Statistical analysis
Laser transmission system is important in high power solid-state laser facilities and its function is to transfer and focus the light beam in accordance with the physical function of the facility. This system is mainly composed of transmission mirror modules and wedge lens module. In order to realize the precision alignment of the system, the precision alignment of the system is required to be decomposed into the allowable range of the calibration error of each module. The traditional method is to analyze the error factors of the modules separately, and then the linear synthesis is carried out, and the influence of the multi-module and multi-factor is obtained. In order to analyze the effect of the alignment error of each module on the beam center and focus more accurately, this paper aims to combine with the Monte Carlo random test and ray tracing, analyze influence of multi-module and multi-factor on the center of the beam, and evaluate and optimize the results of accuracy decomposition.
High-energy solid-state laser is an important way to achieve laser fusion research. Laser fusion facility includes thousands of various types of large aperture optics. These large aperture optics should be assembled with high precision and high efficiency. Currently, however, the assembly of large aperture optics is by man’s hand which is in low level of efficiency and labor-intensive. Here, according to the characteristics of the assembly of large aperture optics, we designed three kinds of grasping devices. Using Finite Element Method, we simulated the impact of the grasping device on the PV value and the RMS value of the large aperture optics. The structural strength of the grasping device’s key part was analyzed. An experiment was performed to illustrate the reliability and precision of the grasping device. We anticipate that the grasping device would complete the assembly of large aperture optics precisely and efficiently.
Motivated by the demand to minimize the mount-induced wavefront aberration of the large-aperture laser transport mirror, a low-stress flexure mounting configuration is proposed. Specific optomechanical analyses, including theoretical modeling, numerical analysis and field experiment, are presented. The mechanical properties of the flexure support were studied specifically. Besides, the relation between the mounting forces and the root-mean-square of the gradients (GRMS) value of the mirror surface is studied. Then, the appropriate value of the bolt preload is set to 500N, with which the GRMS value is just 5.35 nm/cm. The results indicate that the flexure mounting configuration is indeed a feasible and promising method to solve the mount-induced distortion problem of large-aperture optics.
In high-power solid-state laser facility (SG-III), focusing laser beams into the target center with precision better than 50 microns (RMS) is dependent on the stringent specifications of thousands of large-aperture transport mirror units and is a huge challenge on the surface aberration control of mirrors. The current mirror’s mounting techniques with screw fastening loads has several engineering conundrums – low control precision for loads (higher scatter even~±30%), and low assembly-rectification efficiency (~100 screws). To improve the current screw-fastening method, a new-style flexure supports method, which has a wonderful performance on uniform control of the external loads and only uses ~30 screws, is proposed to mount the mirror (size: 610mm×440mm×85mm). With theoretical modeling and FEM analysis, the impacts of mounting loads on mirror’s surface aberrations are analyzed and discussed in detail, and the flexure supports system is designed. Finally, with experimental research and case studies, the proposed flexure supports method shows a powerful performance on even control precision of external loads with scatter even less than ±10%, which is a promising mounting process to replace the threaded fasteners mounting the large-aperture optics. These improvements can lay a foundation for mounting process consistency, robustness, and assembly-rectification efficiency of large optical component.
The surface form of mounted large optics has a very important impact on the laser beam performance in high power laser system. To make the surface form to the minimized distortion and keep with the design specifications is always a difficult challenge in China’s SG-III laser system which is made up of thousands meter-sized large optical units and requires to focus all 48 laser beams into nearly 600 μm-diameter spot better than 50 μm (RMS) within a few picoseconds. In this paper, a methodology integrated both 3D finite elements modeling method and nanometer-level precision metrology is proposed to evaluate the surface performance. According to various spatial frequencies, the wavefront characters of large aperture optical component are measured and provided to analyze its mounted surface characters. Assembly and mounting process will be adjusted to meet for the surface wavefront requirements both of with the data both of measured when pre-alignment and predicted for installation. By a case study of large transport mirror, the proposed approach has shown a good performance on obtaining precise surface features and guiding the optical mounting.
Phase Measuring Deflectometry(PMD) is a non-contact, high dynamic-range and full-field metrology which becomes a serious competitor to interferometry. However, the accuracy of deflectometry metrology is strongly influenced by the level of the calibrations. Our paper presents a calibration-based PMD method to test optical flat surface with a high accuracy. In our method, a pin-hole camera was set next to the LCD screen which is used to project sinusoidal fringes to the test flat. And the test flat was placed parallel to the direction of the LCD screen, which makes the geometry calibration process are simplified. The photogrammetric methods used in computer vision science was used to calibrate the pin-hole camera by using a checker pattern shown on another LCD display at six different orientations, the intrinsic parameters can be obtained by processing the obtained image of checker patterns. Further, by making the last orientation of checker pattern is aligned at the same position as the test optical flat, the algorithms used in this paper can obtain the mapping relationship between the CCD pixels and the subaperture coordinates on the test optical flat. We test a optical flat with a size of 50mm in diameter using our setup and algorithm. Our experimental results of optical flat figure from low to high order aberrations show a good agreement with that from the Fizeau interferometer.
We present a transmitted wavefront measuring system of large optic modules based on Shack Hartmann wavefront sensor, aiming to perform optical metrology for rectangular laser slabs arranged in a 4-high by 1-wide matrix. This system is developed to perform high-accuracy measurement for extremely high quality optical components needed for inertial confinement fusion (ICF) facility with wavefront accuracy better than 0.4λ (peak to valley, λ=632.8nm). Sensitivity analysis is put forward to specified tolerances of components to ensure the built system will perform as desired. Experiments results showed that added wavefront of each slab of 32 matrix modules is controlled under 1λ successfully.
In the high-power laser facility (SG-III), focusing 48 laser beams into the target center better than 50 microns (RMS) within a few picoseconds is dependent on the stringent specifications of thousands of large optics and also puts huge challenges on the engineering characteristics of the design and mounting. A parametric optomechanical method is proposed to evaluate the performance of a 400 mm large-aperture transport mirror. With theoretical modeling and numerical analysis, the impacts of assembly structure, manufacturing errors, mounting loads, and gravity on the mirror surface aberrations are calculated and discussed in detail. With field experiments and case studies, the proposed method shows a powerful performance on the mirror surface aberrations’ evaluation, and negative impacts of currently used mounting techniques for the mirror are found. Finally, a new assembly design is presented based on a discussion of its advantages.
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