Femtosecond damage threshold at kHz and MHz pulse repetition rates

Femtosecond laser-induced damage threshold (LIDT) measurements for different optical components are well studied for a set of laser pulse repetition rates spanning the range between 1 Hz and 1 kHz. Recent years saw the advent of high-repetition-rate femtosecond systems with relatively high pulse energy. Therefore investigation of LIDT in the MHz region is essential. We performed several comparative femtosecond LIDT measurements on typically used ultrafast optical elements with different Ti:Sapphire laser systems having substantially different pulse repetition rates (a 1 kHz regenerative amplifier and a 4.3 MHz long-cavity oscillator) and found a substantially lower MHz LIDT threshhold.

[1]  Volker Raab,et al.  Results of a round-robin experiment in multiple-pulse LIDT measurement with ultrashort pulses , 2004, SPIE Laser Damage.

[2]  T. Glynn,et al.  The effect of damage accumulation behaviour on ablation thresholds and damage morphology in ultrafast laser micro-machining of common metals in air , 2004 .

[3]  Mark Mero,et al.  Femtosecond dynamics of dielectric films in the pre-ablation regime , 2005 .

[4]  Yuxin Leng,et al.  Thermal-dynamical analysis of blister formation in chirped mirror irradiated by single femtosecond lasers. , 2014, Applied Optics.

[5]  Ferenc Krausz,et al.  Photoablation with sub-10 fs laser pulses , 2000 .

[6]  Igor Goenaga,et al.  On the incubation effect on two thermoplastics when irradiated with ultrashort laser pulses: Broadening effects when machining microchannels , 2006 .

[7]  B. Chimier,et al.  Toward determinism in surface damaging of dielectrics using few-cycle laser pulses , 2010 .

[8]  Michael F. Becker,et al.  Laser-induced damage on single-crystal metal surfaces , 1988 .

[9]  Kai Starke,et al.  Laser damage thresholds of optical coatings , 2009 .

[10]  Kai Starke,et al.  Femtosecond laser pulse induced breakdown in dielectric thin films , 2001 .

[11]  Jörg Krüger,et al.  Interaction area dependence of the ablation threshold of ion-doped glass , 2004 .

[12]  K. Petermann,et al.  Efficient femtosecond high power Yb:Lu(2)O(3) thin disk laser. , 2007, Optics express.

[13]  Kai Starke,et al.  Laser-induced damage investigation in chirped mirrors for ultrashort-pulse laser systems , 2001, SPIE Laser Damage.

[14]  P. M. Lugarà,et al.  Role of heat accumulation on the incubation effect in multi-shot laser ablation of stainless steel at high repetition rates. , 2014, Optics express.

[15]  Kai Starke,et al.  On the damage behavior of dielectric films when illuminated with multiple femtosecond laser pulses , 2005 .

[16]  Jörg Krüger,et al.  Femtosecond laser damage of a high reflecting mirror , 2002 .

[17]  Tino Eidam,et al.  Sub 25 fs pulses from solid-core nonlinear compression stage at 250 W of average power. , 2012, Optics letters.

[18]  J. Krüger,et al.  Femtosecond laser-induced damage of gold films , 2007 .

[19]  F. Krausz,et al.  Optical breakdown of multilayer thin-films induced by ultrashort pulses at MHz repetition rates. , 2013, Optics express.

[20]  Denny Wernham,et al.  Vacuum laser damage test bench , 2005, SPIE Laser Damage.