Diffraction gratings for high intensity lasers

International audienceHigh intensity lasers are particularly challenging for the design and fabrication of diffraction gratings with important contraints in terms of diffraction efficiency, resistance to laser damage and size. We will review the main advances in the field of diffraction gratings for the compression of high power pulses. Emphasize will be placed in surface relief reflection gratings for which we can distinguish metallic gratings, multilayer dielectric gratings, hybrid metal-dielectric gratings and total internal reflection gratings. We will detail the interest of each configuration regarding the polarization of the incident laser beam, the resistance to laser damage and the spectral tolerance. Finally, we will describe the latest progress in this field of research that pushes the limits of this emblematic optical component