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High-peak-power lasers are fundamental to high-field science: increased laser intensity has enabled laboratory astrophysics, relativistic plasma physics, and compact laser-based particle accelerators. However, the meter-scale optics required for multi-petawatt lasers to avoid light-induced damage make further increases in power challenging. Plasma tolerates orders-of-magnitude higher light flux than glass, but previous efforts to miniaturize lasers by constructing plasma analogs for conventional optics were limited by low efficiency and poor optical quality. We describe a new approach to plasma optics based on avalanche ionization of atomic clusters that produces plasma volume transmission gratings with dramatically increased diffraction efficiency. We measure an average efficiency of up to 36% and a single-shot efficiency of up to 60%, which is comparable to key components of high-power laser beamlines, while maintaining high spatial quality and focusability. These results suggest that plasma diffraction gratings may be a viable component of future lasers with peak power beyond 10 PW. 

Spatial distributions of electrons ionized and scattered from ultra-low-pressure gases are proposed and experimentally demonstrated as a method to directly measure the intensity of an ultra-high-intensity laser pulse. Analytic models relating the peak scattered electron energy to the peak laser intensity are derived and compared to paraxial Runge–Kutta simulations highlighting two models suitable for describing electrons scattered from weakly paraxial beams (f#>5) for intensities in the range of 1018−1021 W cm−2. Scattering energies are shown to be dependent on gas species, emphasizing the need for specific gases for given intensity ranges. Direct measurements of the laser intensity at full power of two laser systems are demonstrated, both showing a good agreement between indirect methods of intensity measurement and the proposed method. One experiment exhibited the role of spatial aberrations in the scattered electron distribution, motivating a qualitative study on the effect. We propose the use of convolutional neural networks as a method for extracting quantitative information on the spatial structure of the laser at full power. We believe the presented technique to be a powerful tool that can be immediately implemented in many high-power laser facilities worldwide.