Spatial beam shaping for high-power frequency tripling lasers based on a liquid crystal spatial light modulator

Abstract We propose and demonstrate a spatial beam shaping method to achieve high-quality near-field for a high-power frequency tripling laser system by using a liquid crystal spatial light modulator (SLM). Considering the nonlinear relationship between the output 3 ω intensity and the input 1 ω intensity of the frequency conversion system and the transmittance nonuniformity of the whole laser system, we introduce an efficient spatial beam shaping method that improves the output near-field beam quality of frequency tripling laser dramatically. Results show that the near-field peak-to-mean value of the frequency tripling laser improves from 1.83:1 to 1.42:1 after spatial beam shaping within four shots. This method provides effective guidance for spatial beam shaping of high-power frequency tripling laser systems.