Development of high damage threshold optics for petawatt-class short-pulse lasers

Book · Wed Nov 01 04:00:00 EST 1995

OSTI ID:113512

Stuart, B C; Perry, M D; Boyd, R D; Britten, J A; Shore, B W; Feit, M D; Rubenchik, A M ^[1]

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1. Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (United States)

The authors report laser-induced damage threshold measurements on pure and multilayer dielectrics and gold-coated optics at 1,053 and 526 nm for pulse durations, {tau}, ranging from 140 fs to 1 ns. Damage thresholds of gold coatings are limited to 500 mJ/cm{sup 2} in the subpicosecond range for 1,053-nm pulses. In dielectrics, qualitative differences in the morphology of damage and a departure from the diffusion-dominated {tau}{sup 1/2} scaling indicate that damage results from plasma formation and ablation for {tau}{<=}10 ps and from conventional melting and boiling for T>50 ps. A theoretical model based on electron production via multiphoton ionization, Joule heating, and collisional (avalanche) ionization is in quantitative agreement with both the pulse width and wavelength scaling of experimental results.

• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-48
• OSTI ID: 113512
• Report Number(s): CONF-950226--; ISBN 0-8194-1724-6
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

42 ENGINEERING
DAMAGE
DIELECTRIC MATERIALS
ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSES
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
LASER MATERIALS
LASER RADIATION
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
MULTI-PHOTON PROCESSES
OPTICAL SYSTEMS
SOLID STATE LASERS