Generation of dark hollow femtosecond pulsed
beam by phase-only liquid crystal
spatial light modulator
Yongming Nie,
1
Haotong Ma,
2
Xiujian Li,
1,
* Wenhua Hu,
1
and Jiankun Yang
1
1
Tech-Physical Research Center of Science College, National University
of Defense Technology, Changsha, Hunan 410073, China
2
College of Photon-Electron Science and Engineering, National University
of Defense Technology, Changsha, Hunan 410073, China
*Corresponding author: xjli@nudt.edu.cn
Received 10 May 2011; revised 22 June 2011; accepted 22 June 2011;
posted 27 June 2011 (Doc. ID 147191); published 19 July 2011
Based on the refractive laser beam shaping system, the dark hollow femtosecond pulse beam shaping
technique with a phase-only liquid crystal spatial light modulator (LC-SLM) is demonstrated. The phase
distribution of the LC-SLM is derived by the energy conservation and constant optical path principle. The
effects of the shaping system on the temporal properties, including spectral phase distribution and band-
width of the femtosecond pulse, are analyzed in detail. Experimental results show that the hollow in-
tensity distribution of the output pulsed beam can be maintained much at more than 1200 mm. The
spectral phase of the pulse is changed, and the pulse width is expanded from 199 to 230 fs, which is
caused by the spatial–temporal coupling effect. The coupling effect mainly depends on the phase-only
LC-SLM itself, not on its loaded phase distribution. The experimental results indicate that the proposed
shaping setup can generate a dark hollow femtosecond pulsed beam effectively, because the temporal
Gaussian waveform is unchanged. © 2011 Optical Society of America
OCIS codes: 140.3300, 230.6120, 120.5060.
1. Introduction
Normally, most cross-section intensity distributions
of laser beams are Gaussian or quasi- Gaussian pro-
files, which often limit their efficiency in many fields,
such as atom optics, optical communications, laser
tracking, and nonlinear optics [1–6]. In order to im-
prove the efficiency, the initial laser beam should be
shaped to other intensity distributions, such as dark
hollow, flattop, and Bessel beam [7–14]. In recent
years, we have done some research work in laser
beam shaping such as near-diffraction-limited flat-
top laser beam generation [15]. The generation of
a dark hollow femtosecond pulsed beam is demon-
strated, and the spatially shaped femtosecond pulsed
laser beam may be used in many areas, such as the
drilling of holes while leaving material in the center
part [16], high-harmonic generation [17], and multi-
photon ionization of xenon in annular laser beams
[18]. To the best of our knowledge, the experimental
generation of dark hollow femtosecond pulsed beam
based on refractive optical elements has never been
reported.
In the past, several theoretical models have been
proposed to describe the beam with dark hollow in-
tensity distribution, and various methods have been
proposed to generate dark hollow beams [19–22]. In
this paper, we utilize the refractive laser beam shap-
ing system to generate the dark hollow pulsed beam
because of its simple design procedure and high en-
ergy conversion. However, the shaping system based
on the refractive system has already been used to
generate flattop and Bessel laser beams [23,24].
0003-6935/11/214174-06$15.00/0
© 2011 Optical Society of America
4174 APPLIED OPTICS / Vol. 50, No. 21 / 20 July 2011