Far-field detection system for laser beam and crystal alignment

Laser beam far-field alignment as well as frequency-doubling and frequency-tripling crystal adjustment is very important for high-power laser facility. Separate systems for beam and crystal alignment are generally used while the proposed approach by off-axial grating sampling share common optics for these two functions, reducing both space and cost requirements. This detection system has been demonstrated on the National Laser Facility of Israel. The experimental results indicate that the average far-field alignment error is <5% of the spatial filter pinhole diameter, average autocollimation angle error of crystals is <10 mu rad, and average frequency-tripling conversion efficiency is 69.3%, which meet the alignment system requirements on the beam direction and crystals. (C) 2016 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)