Single-shot femtosecond laser-induced damage and ablation of HfO2/SiO2- based optical thin films: a comparison between few-cycle pulses and 110 fs pulses

Talisa, Noah; Tripepi, Michael; Harris, B.; AlShafey, Abdallah; Krebs, Jacob; Davenport, Aaron; Randel, Emmett; Menoni, Carmen S.; Chowdhury, Enam

doi:10.1117/12.2536423

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 16 publications

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“…Further increase of output power of the high peak-power ultrafast laser systems is one of the major trends in ultrafast laser science and technology. However, the progress of that development is substantially hindered by the laser-induced damage (LID) of optical materials used in critical laser components [13]. Significant research efforts are currently focused on studies of all aspects of high-power ultrafast interactions of femtosecond laser pulses with the transparent materials.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ultrafast Laser Material Damage Simulation—A New Look at an Old Problem

et al. 2022

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The chirped pulse amplification technique has enabled the generation of pulses of a few femtosecond duration with peak powers multi-Tera and Peta–Watt in the near infrared. Its implementation to realize even shorter pulse duration, higher energy, and higher repetition rate laser systems relies on overcoming the limitations imposed by laser damage of critical components. In particular, the laser damage of coatings in the amplifiers and in post-compression optics have become a bottleneck. The robustness of optical coatings is typically evaluated numerically through steady-state simulations of electric field enhancement in multilayer stacks. However, this approach cannot capture crucial characteristics of femtosecond laser induced damage (LID), as it only considers the geometry of the multilayer stack and the optical properties of the materials composing the stack. This approach neglects that in the interaction of an ultrashort pulse and the materials there is plasma generation and associated material modifications. Here, we present a numerical approach to estimate the LID threshold of dielectric multilayer coatings based on strong field electronic dynamics. In this dynamic scheme, the electric field propagation, photoionization, impact ionization, and electron heating are incorporated through a finite-difference time-domain algorithm. We applied our method to simulate the LID threshold of bulk fused silica, and of multilayer dielectric mirrors and gratings. The results are then compared with experimental measurements. The salient aspects of our model, such as the implementation of the Keldysh photoionization model, the impact ionization model, the electron collision model for ‘low’-temperature, dense plasma, and the LID threshold criterion for few-cycle pulses are discussed.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ultrafast Laser Material Damage Simulation—A New Look at an Old Problem

et al. 2022

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Few-cycle optical field breakdown and damage of gallium oxide and gallium nitride

et al. 2022

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Both gallium oxide and gallium nitride have great potential for use as high power transparent conducting oxide materials for a wide range of optoelectronic applications. It is, therefore, important to determine the dynamic optical field breakdown for these materials. Here, we report laser damage thresholds for Ga2O3 and GaN using 9 fs few-cycle pulses with a center wavelength near 760 nm. We determine laser-induced damage thresholds (LIDTs) for both single pulse and multi-pulse exposures, with multi-pulse LIDT showing significant reduction compared to single pulse LIDT (in some cases, >50%), possibly due to laser-induced defects. We show that Ga2O3 and GaN have an ultrafast optical field breakdown of 23 and 18 GV/m when nearly polarized along their [010] and [111] planes, respectively, extending their suitability for high power applications to the ultrashort pulse regime. To accurately characterize the excited carrier density criteria in which apparent laser damage occurs, carrier excitation dynamics for the entire laser pulse interaction were simulated using a modified Keldysh ionization model. For the measured single-shot threshold fluences, the plasma critical density was surpassed by 2 orders of magnitude and 2D finite-difference time-domain simulations were employed to understand the pulse interaction near the surface.

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Comparison of damage and ablation dynamics of multilayer dielectric films initiated by few-cycle pulses versus longer femtosecond pulses

et al. 2020

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The importance of high intensity few- to single-cycle laser pulses for applications such as intense isolated attosecond pulse generation is constantly growing, and with the breakdown of the monochromatic approximation in field ionization models, the few-cycle pulse (FCP) interaction with solids near the damage threshold has ushered a new paradigm of nonperturbative light–matter interaction. In this Letter, we systematically study and contrast how femtosecond laser-induced damage and ablation behaviors of S i O 2 / H f O 2 -based reflective multilayer dielectric thin film systems vary between FCP and 110 fs pulses. With time-resolved surface microscopy and ex situ analysis, we show that there are distinct differences in the interaction depending on the pulse duration, specifically in the “blister” morphology formation at lower fluences (damage) as well as in the dynamics of debris formation at higher fluences (ablation).

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Single-shot femtosecond laser-induced damage and ablation of HfO2/SiO2- based optical thin films: a comparison between few-cycle pulses and 110 fs pulses

Cited by 3 publications

References 16 publications

Ultrafast Laser Material Damage Simulation—A New Look at an Old Problem

Ultrafast Laser Material Damage Simulation—A New Look at an Old Problem

Few-cycle optical field breakdown and damage of gallium oxide and gallium nitride

Comparison of damage and ablation dynamics of multilayer dielectric films initiated by few-cycle pulses versus longer femtosecond pulses

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