Large-area sol-gel highly-reflective coatings processed by the dipping technique

Conference · Mon Dec 01 04:00:00 EST 1997

OSTI ID:552268

Belleville, P ^[1]; Pegon, P ^[2]

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1. CEA - Centre d`Etudes de Limeil-Valenton, Saint George (France)
2. REOSC - Groupe Sfim, St Pierre du Perray (France)

The Centre d`Etudes de Limeil-Valenton is currently involved in a project which consists of the construction of a 2 MJ/500TW (351-nm) pulsed Nd:glass laser devoted to Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) research. With 240 laser beams, the proposed megajoule-class laser conceptual design necessitates 44-cm x 2 44-cm x 6-cm cavity-end mirrors (1053-nm) representing more than 50-m{sup 2} of coated area. These dielectric mirrors are made of quaterwave stacks of SiO{sub 2} and ZrO{sub 2}-PVP (PolyVinylPyrrolidone) and are prepared from colloidal suspensions (sols) using the sol-gel route. After a sustained search effort. we have prepared (SiO{sub 2}/ZrO{sub 2}-PVP){sup 10} mirrored coatings with up to 99% reflection at 1053-nm and for different incidence use. Adequate laser-conditioned damage thresholds ranging 14 - 15 J/cm{sup 2} at 1053-nm wavelength and with 3-ns pulse duration were achieved. Large-area mirrors with good coating uniformity and weak edge-effect were produced by dip-coating at room temperature and atmospheric pressure.

• Research Organization: International Society for Optical Engineering, Washington, DC (United States)
• OSTI ID: 552268
• Report Number(s): CONF-961070--Vol.2966
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
ANTIREFLECTION COATINGS
DAMAGE
DEPOSITION
LASER RADIATION
MIRRORS
NEODYMIUM LASERS
OPTICAL PROPERTIES
PHYSICAL RADIATION EFFECTS
REFLECTIVE COATINGS
REFRACTIVE INDEX
SILICA
ZIRCONIUM OXIDES