Contrary to popular belief MLD gratings can be designed with a wide range of periods to provide the highest overall efficiency pulse compressors that are as compact and flexible as those based on transmission gratings.
All-dielectric diffraction gratings are well-suited for chirped-pulse amplification (CPA) lasers with pulse lengths as short as 100’s of fs and moderate bandwidths up to 10’s of nm. They provide higher diffraction efficiency and laser-induced damage threshold than metallic reflection gratings, resulting in higher overall compressor efficiency and more compact compressor formats, and have extremely low absorption loss. Low loss is especially important for high-repetition-rate, high-average-power (HAP) lasers. The two primary types of all-dielectric gratings are surface-relief transmission and multi-layer dielectric (MLD) reflection gratings. Here we compare these two types of gratings for 1 μm laser applications (e.g., 1030 nm Yb-based systems) in terms of compressor efficiency and compactness, including practical considerations like manufacturability.
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