Self-polarization smoothing technique based on 2×2 beam array and type II+II third-harmonic generation system

Polarization smoothing (PS) is highly desired for inertial confinement fusion, high-power laser facilities. A self-PS technique based on 2×2 beam array and type II+II third-harmonic generation (THG) system is proposed in this paper. This scheme takes advantage of a type II+II THG system, which induces a 35° angle between the polarization states of output third-harmonic laser and input fundamental laser. It rotates two THG systems in a 2×2 beam array by 180° to obtain a 70° polarization angle between two sets of output lasers. Simulation results show that the intensity contrast of the overlapped focal spot can be reduced at 1.34× without inserting any additional optics. This approaches the maximum value of various PS techniques (i.e., 1.41×).