Laser-induced damage thresholds of bulk and coating optical materials at 1030  nm, 500  fs

Abstract

We report on extensive femtosecond laser damage threshold measurements of optical materials in both bulk and thin-film form. This study, which is based on published and new data, involved simple oxide and fluoride films, composite films made from a mixture of two dielectric materials, metallic films, and the surfaces of various bulk materials: oxides, fluorides, semiconductors, and ionic crystals. The samples were tested in comparable conditions at 1030 nm, 375 to 600 fs, under single-pulse irradiation. A large number of different samples prepared by different deposition techniques have been tested, involving classical materials used in the fabrication of optical thin film components (Ag, AlF3, Al2O3, HfO2, MgF2, Nb2O5, Pt, Sc2O3, SiO2, Ta2O5, Y2O3, and ZrO2) and their combination with codeposition processes. Their behaviors are compared with the surfaces of bulk materials (Al2O3, BaF2, CaF2, Ge, KBr, LiF, MgF2, NaCl, Quartz, Si, ZnS, ZnSe, and different silica glasses). Tabulated values of results are presented and discussed.

Analysis of energy deposition and damage mechanisms in single layer optical thin films irradiated by IR and UV femtosecond pulses

“…7 This is of particular interest for the choice of materials for high power applications, even if some deviations from this linear behavior can be observed in the case of mixtures of oxides. 7 For the NIR experimental data presented in this work ( Fig. 2-b), there is a linear dependence of the LIDT with the bandgap, as was previously discussed.…”

“…These results well continue the trends of previous measurements. 7,8,11 In the NIR and sub-picosecond regime, there is a direct dependence of the LIDT with respect to the bandgap for optical materials, which can be explained by invoking the bandgap dependence of the multiphoton absorption coefficient from the Keldysh photoionization theory. 11 For oxide thin films as for bulk materials, the dependence is linear in a limited range of bandgap values and the result is not dependent on the manufacturing technique or deposition parameters.…”

Thin films characterizations to design high-reflective coatings for ultrafast high power laser systems

“…The optical bandgap and refractive index are related to each other: the relationship between bandgap and refractive index has a linear behavior in the range of interest. 16 As a consequence, the LIDT is linearly decreasing with the refractive index of the material as observed on Fig. 4.…”

Analysis of laser energy deposition leading to damage and ablation of HfO2 and Nb2O5 single layers submitted to 500 fs pulses at 1030 and 343 nm

“…The beam diameter in the sample plane was %80-lm diameter at 1030 nm and %35-lm diameter at 343 nm with a Gaussian profile. The relative error budget on the fluence determination was ±2 % at 1030 nm and ±5 % at 343 nm, whereas the absolute error on the fluence determination was estimated to be ±10 % [16]. A complete description of the experiment can be found in Ref.…”

“…Therefore, in the case of optical coatings if one wants to obtain the laser damage resistance of a given material, for comparison of films with different thicknesses for instance, one has to take into account for the interference effects. Then, in this work the LIDT is defined as intrinsic LIDT of the material that corresponds to the measured data that are rescaled in order to take into account the electric field distribution in the sample [16]. The electric field distributions are calculated according to the determined properties of the films (Sect.…”