System and method for pumping laser sustained plasma with an illumination source having modified pupil power distribution

An optical characterization system, comprising:

• an illumination sub-system comprising:
• a plasma site configured to contain a plasma-forming material;
• an illumination source configured to output a pump beam;
• one or more focusing optics;
• one or more beam shapers configured to reshape the pump beam to provide a shaped pupil power distribution at an illumination pupil plane of the one or more focusing optics, wherein the shaped pupil power distribution comprises at least one of a flat-top distribution or an inverted distribution with a central local intensity minimum, wherein the one or more focusing optics are configured to receive the pump beam from the one or more beam shapers and direct the pump beam to the plasma-forming material, whereby the pump beam at least one of forms or maintains a plasma that emits broadband illumination;
• and
• one or more collection optics to direct the broadband illumination to a sample;
• a collection sub-system comprising:
• a detector;
• and
• one or more optical elements to direct at least a portion of light from the sample onto the detector;
• and
• a controller communicatively coupled to the detector, the controller including one or more processors configured to execute program instructions causing the one or more processors to generate one or more measurements of the sample based on data from the detector generated in response to illumination of the sample with the broadband illumination.

A method, comprising:

• generating a pump beam;
• reshaping the pump beam to a shaped pupil power distribution at an illumination pupil of one or more focusing optics, wherein the shaped pupil power distribution comprises at least one of a flat-top distribution or an inverted distribution with a central local intensity minimum, wherein the shaped pupil power distribution is located at an illumination pupil plane of one or more focusing optics;
• and
• directing the pump beam to a plasma forming material with the one or more focusing optics, whereby the pump beam causes the plasma forming material to at least one of form or sustain a plasma that emits broadband illumination.