High-efficiency 1.5 mu m thick optical axis grating and its use for laser beam combining

    Authors

    S. Serak; N. Tabiryan;B. Zeldovich

    Comments

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    Abbreviated Journal Title

    Opt. Lett.

    Keywords

    LIQUID-CRYSTALS; POLARIZATION PROPERTIES; EXTERNAL-CAVITY; ALIGNMENT; Optics

    Abstract

    We demonstrate an optical axis grating (OAG) recorded in a nematic liquid crystal that yields a higher than 80% diffraction efficiency and over 800:1 switching contrast between diffraction orders for a laser beam of a red wavelength in a material layer only 1.5 mu m thick. The grating was used for combining two laser beams with high efficiency. These observations prove the feasibility of new generation high-efficiency diffractive optical components, which are most promising for infrared and high-power applications owing to their enhanced transparency and reduced thermal effects in thin material layers. (c) 2006 Optical Society of America.

    Journal Title

    Optics Letters

    Volume

    32

    Issue/Number

    2

    Publication Date

    1-1-2007

    Document Type

    Article

    Language

    English

    First Page

    169

    Last Page

    171

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000243298700021

    ISSN

    0146-9592

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