The output energies of lasers have increased year-by-year since their invention. Compared to this increase of laser energies, the damage threshold of optical components has not strongly changed. Therefore, the size of optics in high-energy laser system increases. This situation could change dramatically if optics with higher damage threshold were developed. Here, we propose a high damage threshold optics using a neutral gas as an active medium. More than 95% diffraction efficiency has been achieved. The damage threshold for a 6 ns laser pulse is measured to be 1.6 kJ/cm². The aperture size of the present system is about 60 mm². Based on this result, we anticipate that control of a 1 kJ laser beam may be achievable using 1 cm sized optics, driven by a < 50 mJ ultraviolet laser, making this scheme promising in high power laser applications.

自从发明以来，激光器的输出能量逐年增加。与激光能量的这种增加相比，光学组件的损坏阈值没有强烈改变。因此，高能激光系统中光学器件的尺寸增加。如果开发出具有更高损伤阈值的光学器件，这种情况可能会发生巨大变化。在这里，我们建议使用中性气体作为活性介质的高损伤阈值光学器件。已达到95％以上的衍射效率。6 ns激光脉冲的损坏阈值测量为1.6 kJ / cm ²。本系统的孔径大小约为60 mm ²。基于此结果，我们预计可以使用1 cm大小的光学元件（由<50 mJ紫外线激光器驱动）实现对1 kJ激光束的控制，从而使该方案在高功率激光应用中很有希望。