Optical ablation by high-power short-pulse lasers
- Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, P.O. Box 808, L-493, Livermore, California 94550 (United States)
Laser-induced damage threshold measurements were performed on homogeneous and multilayer dielectrics and gold-coated optics at 1053 and 526 nm for pulse durations {tau} ranging from 140 fs to 1 ns. Gold coatings were found, both experimentally and theoretically, to be limited to 0.6 J/cm{sup 2} in the subpicosecond range for 1053-nm pulses. In dielectrics, we find qualitative differences in the morphology of damage and a departure from the diffusion-dominated {tau}{sup 1/2} scaling that indicate that damage results from plasma formation and ablation for {tau}{le}10 ps and from conventional heating and melting for {tau}{approx_gt}50 ps. A theoretical model based on electron production by multiphoton ionization, joule heating, and collisional (avalanche) ionization is in quantitative agreement with both the pulse-width and the wavelength scaling of experimental results. {copyright} {ital 1996 Optical Society of America.}
- OSTI ID:
- 285891
- Journal Information:
- Journal of the Optical Society of America, Part B: Optical Physics, Vol. 13, Issue 2; Other Information: PBD: Feb 1996
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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