Generation of stable, reflective plasma gratings from structured solid surfaces

Plasma optics enable manipulation of ultra-intense laser pulses beyond the damage limits of conventional solid-state components. In high-power laser systems, diffraction grating damage thresholds constrain achievable energy, often requiring increased beam size in pulse compressors. While plasma gratings offer a promising alternative, existing implementations are limited by low operational fluence and poor stability. Here, we demonstrate a simple plasma grating generated from ionizing the surface of a solid grating. The plasma grating faithfully replicates the geometry of the underlying solid grating and is capable of handling input fluences up to 15 J/cm², achieving an operational efficiency of 36% with less than 0.3% standard deviation. Depending on the design of the solid grating, the operational efficiency may be dramatically improved to ~80%.