The impact of laser damage on the lifetime of optical components in fusion lasers

The purpose of this paper is to gather experimental elements allowing for the prediction of laser damage on full size components installed on high power Nd-glass laser lines. Damage can initiated on material defects, which aren’t known in their nature, but the density of which can be measured. On transmissive optics, depending on the component thickness, and on the intensity distribution at the front surface, rear surface damage can also appear due to self-focusing of hot spots. These two contributions produce damage sites that are prone to grow. The growth rate has been shown to be proportional to the damaged area. The resulting exponential growth is the major limitation to the lifetime of optics. A representation of these phenomena in the plane Intensity/Fluence gives a practical description of the impact of laser damage on the lifetime of optical components. It also enlightens the comparison between different operating conditions.

[1]  Pierre Garrec,et al.  R-on-1 automatic mapping: a new tool for laser damage testing , 1996, Laser Damage.

[2]  Mark R. Kozlowski,et al.  Current 3-ω large optic test procedures and data analysis for the quality assurance of National Ignition Facility optics , 1999, Laser Damage.

[3]  Mark R. Kozlowski,et al.  Damage resistant optics for a megajoule solid state laser , 1991, Laser Damage.

[4]  David Milam,et al.  Modeling of filamentation damage induced in silica by 351-nm laser pulses , 1997, Laser Damage.

[5]  Predicting bulk damage in NIF triple harmonic generators , 1999, Laser Damage.

[6]  Perry,et al.  Nanosecond-to-femtosecond laser-induced breakdown in dielectrics. , 1996, Physical review. B, Condensed matter.

[7]  David Milam,et al.  Laser conditioning study of KDP on the optical sciences laser using large area beams , 1998, Laser Damage.

[8]  Herve Bercegol,et al.  Refined statistical measurements of laser damage , 2000, Laser Damage.

[9]  Laurent Gallais,et al.  Optimized metrology for laser-damage measurement: application to multiparameter study. , 2003, Applied optics.

[10]  Olivier Morice,et al.  Miro: Complete modeling and software for pulse amplification and propagation in high-power laser systems , 2003 .

[11]  Michael D. Feit,et al.  Extrapolation of damage test data to predict performance of large-area NIF optics at 355 nm , 1999, Laser Damage.

[12]  Laurent Lamaignère,et al.  Self-focusing and surface damage in fused-silica windows of variable thickness with UV nanosecond pulses , 2004, SPIE Laser Damage.

[13]  P. L. Kelley,et al.  Self-focusing of optical beams , 1965, International Quantum Electronics Conference, 2005..

[14]  Herve Bercegol.  Statistical distribution of laser damage and spatial scaling law for a model with multiple defect cooperation in damage , 2000, Laser Damage.

[15]  Herve Bercegol,et al.  Growth of damage sites due to platinum inclusions in Nd-doped laser glass irradiated by the beam of a large-scale Nd:glass laser , 2003, SPIE Laser Damage.

[16]  E. S. Bliss,et al.  Pulse duration dependence of laser damage mechanisms , 1971 .

[17]  Herve Bercegol,et al.  What is laser conditioning: a review focused on dielectric multilayers , 1999, Laser Damage.

[18]  J. Porteus,et al.  Absolute onset of optical surface damage using distributed defect ensembles. , 1984, Applied optics.

[19]  Patricia Volto,et al.  Self-focusing and rear surface damage in a fused silica window at 1064 nm and 355 nm , 2003, SPIE Laser Damage.

[20]  Michel A. Josse,et al.  Parametric study of the growth of damage sites on the rear surface of fused silica windows , 2003, SPIE Laser Damage.