PGL’s innovative combination of thin-film coating technology with grating design and fabrication know-how allows the diffraction efficiency, wavefront, LIDT, and power-handling capability required for Spectral Beam Combining (SBC) laser systems.

Features table for the high energy laser spectral beam combining grating listing grating type, diffraction efficiency, bandwidth and damage threshold

Benefits

  • High nonpolarizing Diffraction Efficiency
  • Excellent Diffracted Wavefront Error
  • High Laser-Induced Damage Threshold (LIDT)
  • Low absorption to avoid heating effects
  • Superior uniformity, even for sizes > 150 mm

Typical Applications

  • Spectral Beam Combining of High Energy Lasers (HEL) for Directed Energy
Diffraction efficiency versus wavelength plot for the MLD grating showing s, p and average polarization near 99 percent from 1000 to 1100 nm

Product Details

PGL has extensive expertise in grating manufacturing, as well as in thin-film optical coating, reactive-ion etching, optical metrology, and precision cleaning, inspection, and handling of large optics. All these processes are critical to high-performance MLD diffraction gratings for spectral beam combining.

Diffraction efficiency uniformity heatmap across a 100 by 100 mm MLD grating averaging 98.7 percent
Technicians in a cleanroom handling a large multilayer dielectric grating showing rainbow diffraction

PGL’s unique grating designs and proprietary thin-film coating processes enable us to produce SBC gratings with the highest possible diffraction efficiency, widest spectral bandwidth, and superior manufacturability.

And we are always innovating. PGL demonstrated the first all-silica-tooth gratings on high-damage-threshold, low-loss silica-hafnia thin-film coatings. These next-generation gratings will be required to meet the needs of future HEL systems with intensities > 1 MW/cm2.

Close-up of a round multilayer dielectric grating mounted on a stage showing green and orange diffracted light
Standard sizes list for the spectral beam combining gratings with custom sizes available