Numerical simulation of coherent summation of laser beams in the presence of non-idealities in the dipole focusing system

TL;DR

This paper presents a simulation method for coherent laser beam summation considering system non-idealities, demonstrating the potential to reach extremely high intensities with optimized multi-beam configurations.

Contribution

It introduces a Stratton-Chu based computational library for simulating reflected optical fields in dipole focusing systems with non-idealities.

Findings

Achievable intensity above 3×10^{26} W/cm^2 with 12 beams of 50 PW each

Realistic phase distortion and aberration effects considered

Potential for high-intensity laser applications

Abstract

A programming library was developed, based on Stratton-Chu diffraction integrals for calculating reflected optical fields. Dipole-type focusing schemes with tunable number of beams and mirror placements were studied, considering the influence of phase distortion and aberrations. The intensity above $3\times 10^{26}$ W/cm$^2$ was found theoretically attainable in a system of 12 beams of 50 PW each with about 90 % of that value realistically achievable.