Current advances in smoothing of laser intensity profile

We present the experimental results, and their analysis, connected to the possibility to control laser inhomogeneities exploiting the non-uniform electron density distribution created by the laser while propagating in a gas jet. The induced self-refraction in the plasma created in the gas medium results in re-distributing local over-intensities over larger surfaces. The experiment at the PALS laser facility has been performed creating a large non-uniformity by a wedge arrangement and recording the static and dynamic images with and without the coupling to an Al target.