Measurement of transient near-infrared laser pulse wavefront with high precision by radial shearing interferometer

It is hard to measure the transient near-infrared pulse laser wavefront in inertial confinement fusion (ICF) system by conventional methods for its short pulse width, large energy, high power and large distortion. A circular radial shearing interferometer based on spatial phase modulation is proposed to measure the transient near-infrared laser pulse wavefront with high precision. Transient, highly precise measurement for near-infrared laser pulse wavefront, with pulse width of nanometer scale and central wavelength of 1064 nm, can be carried out with common path, no reference plane. The theory of wavefront reconstruction has been validated by the computer simulation, and an error less than 1/1000 is obtained. Comparing with the results of ZYGO interferometer, an error less than 1/15 for both peak valley and root mean square value, is gained with good repeatability. The system has already been used in the ICF system to test the pulsed laser wavefront, and can also be applied to other lasers of visible and infrared wavelengths. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.