Optical performance and laser induced damage threshold improvement of diffraction gratings used as compressors in ultra high intensity lasers

This paper studies gratings engraved in a multilayer dielectric stack for ultra high intensity laser compressors. A metal layer is inserted between the substrate and the dielectric stack to reduce the number of dielectric bilayers and thus the mechanical stress within the stack. A code taking account the fluctuation range of the geometrical parameters during the fabrication process is used to numerically optimize the mirror stack and study different groove profiles to increase the reflected efficiency and the laser induced damage threshold. It is evidenced that of all the profiles leading to good diffraction performances, those with the greatest groove depth and width values result in the smallest enhancement of the electric field square inside the grating with a decrease by a factor close to 2.5.