Laser-induced damage on large-aperture fused silica gratings

Two sets of laser-damage experiments on large-aperture fused silica optics have been carried out in a high-power laser facility. Severe damage has been found on the grating which presented dense craters on the front surface. This phenomenon is quite different from other fused silica optics, which are damaged on the rear surface. The damage possibility due to the redeposition layer was ruled out by acid-etching the grating＇s front surface. The remarkable stimulated Brillouin scattering （SBS） effect was observed in grating and the reason for the front surface damage is thought to be the backward SBS.

Subsurface defect characterization and laser-induced damage performance of fused silica optics polished with colloidal silica and ceria

This paper mainly focuses on the influence of colloidal silica polishing on the damage performance of fused silica optics. In this paper, nanometer sized colloidal silica and micron sized ceria are used to polish fused silica optics. The colloidal silica polished samples and ceria polished samples exhibit that the root-mean-squared （RMS） average surface roughness values are 0.7 nm and 1.0 rim, respectively. The subsurface defects and damage performance of the polished optics are analyzed and discussed. It is revealed that colloidal silica polishing will introduce much fewer absorptive con- taminant elements and subsurface damages especially no trailing indentation fracture. The 355-nm laser damage test reveals that each of the fused silica samples polished with colloidal silica has a much higher damage threshold and lower damage density than ceria polished samples. Colloidal silica polishing is potential in manufacturing high power laser optics.

The effect of laser beam size on laser-induced damage performance

The influence of laser beam size on laser-induced damage performance, especially damage probability and the laser-induced damage threshold （LIDT）, is investigated. It is found that damage probability is dependent on beam size when various damage precursors with different potential behaviors are involved. This causes the damage probability and the LIDT to be different between cases under a large-apertnre beam and a small-aperture beam. Moreover, the fluenee fluctuation of the large-aperture laser beam brings out hot spots, which move randomly across the beam from shot to shot. Thus this leads the most probable maximum fluenee after many shots at any location on the optical component to be several times the average beam fluence, These two effects result in the difference in the damage performance of the optical component between the cases under a large-aperture and small-aperture laser.

Laser-induced Damage of 355 nm High-reflective Mirror Caused by Nanoscale Defect

Al2O3/SiO2 multilayer high-reflective（HR） mirrors at 355 nm were prepared by electron beam evaporation, and post-irradiated with Ar/O mixture plasma. The surface defect density, reflective spectra, and laser-induced damage characteristics were measured using optical microscopy, spectrophotometry, a damage testing system, and scanning electron microscopy（SEM）, respectively. The results indicated that moderate-time of irradiation enhanced the laser-induced damage threshold（LIDT） of the mirror, but prolonged irradiation produced surface defects, resulting in LIDT degradation. LIDT of the mirrors initially increased and subsequently decreased with the plasma processing time. SEM damage morphologies of the mirrors revealed that nanoscale absorbing defects in sub-layers was one of the key factors limiting the improvement of LIDT in 355 nm HR mirror.

Laser-induced damage threshold in HfO_2/SiO_2 multilayer films irradiated by β-ray

Post-processing can effectively improve the resistance to laser damage in multilayer films used in a high power laser system. In this work, HfO_2/SiO_2 multilayer films are prepared by e-beam evaporation and then β-ray irradiation is employed as the post-processing method. The particle irradiation affects the laser induced damage threshold(LIDT),which includes defects, surface roughness, packing density and residual stress. The residual stress that is relaxed during irradiation changes from compressive stress into tensile stress. Our results indicate that appropriate tensile stress can improve LIDT remarkably. In view of the fact that LIDT rises from 8 J/cm^2 to 12 J/cm^2, i.e., 50% increase, after the film has been irradiated by 2.2×10^(13)/cm^2 β-ray, the particle irradiation can be used as a controllable and desirable postprocessing method to improve the resistance to laser induced damage.

Microstructure and 355 nm Laser-Induced Damage Characteristics of Al₂O₃Films Irradiated with Oxygen Plasma under Different Energy

Al2O3 films were prepared using electron beam evaporation at room temperature. The samples were irradiated with oxygen plasma under different energy. The variations in average surface defect density and root mean square (RMS) surface roughness were characterized using an optical microscope and an atomic force microscope. Surface average defect density increased after plasma treatment. The RMS surface roughness of the samples decreased from 1.92 nm to 1.26 nm because of surface atom restructuring after oxygen plasma conditioning. A 355 nm laser-induced damage experiment indicated that the as-grown sample with the lowest defect density exhibited a higher laser-induced damage threshold (1.12 J/cm2) than the other treated samples. Laser-induced damage images revealed that defect is one of the key factors that affect laser-induced damage on Al2O3 films.

Effect of Oxygen Vacancy on the Band Gap and Nanosecond Laser-Induced Damage Threshold of Ta_(2)O_(5) Films

Ta_(2)O_(5) films are deposited on fused silica substrates by electron beam evaporation method.The optical property,x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy,band gap and nanosecond laser-induced damage threshold(LIDT)of the films before and after annealing are studied.It is found that the existence of an oxygen vacancy results in the decrease of the transmittance,refractive index,both macroscopic band gap and microscopic band gap,and the LIDT of Ta_(2)O_(5) films.If the oxygen vacancy forms,the macroscopic band gap decreases 2%.However,when the oxygen vacancy forms the microscopic band gap decreases 73%for crystalline Ta_(2)O_(5) and 77%for amorphous Ta_(2)O_(5).The serious decrease of microscopic band gap may significantly increase the absorbance of the micro-area in Ta_(2)O_(5) films when irradiated by laser,thus the damage probability increases.It is consistent with our experimental results that the LIDT of the as-deposited Ta_(2)O_(5) films is 7.3 J/cm^(2),which increases 26%to 9.2 J/cm^(2) when the oxygen vacancy is eliminated after annealing.

Continuous gradient fusion class activation mapping: segmentation of laser-induced damage on large-aperture optics in dark-field images

Segmenting dark-field images of laser-induced damage on large-aperture optics in high-power laser facilities is challenged by complicated damage morphology, uneven illumination and stray light interference. Fully supervised semantic segmentation algorithms have achieved state-of-the-art performance but rely on a large number of pixel-level labels, which are time-consuming and labor-consuming to produce. LayerCAM, an advanced weakly supervised semantic segmentation algorithm, can generate pixel-accurate results using only image-level labels, but its scattered and partially underactivated class activation regions degrade segmentation performance. In this paper, we propose a weakly supervised semantic segmentation method, continuous gradient class activation mapping(CAM) and its nonlinear multiscale fusion(continuous gradient fusion CAM). The method redesigns backpropagating gradients and nonlinearly activates multiscale fused heatmaps to generate more fine-grained class activation maps with an appropriate activation degree for different damage site sizes. Experiments on our dataset show that the proposed method can achieve segmentation performance comparable to that of fully supervised algorithms.

The compatibly large nonlinear optical effect and high laser-induced damage threshold in a thiophosphate CsInP_(2)S_(7)constructed with[P_(2)S_(7)]^(4-)and[InS_(6)]^(9-)

It is challenging to cooperatively improve the nonlinear optical(NLO)efficiency and the laser-induced damage threshold(LIDT).This work reports a novel IR NLO materials CsInP_(2)S_(7)(CIPS)designed by combination the strategies of alkali metals substitution and microscopic NLO units PS4 introduction based on AgGaS_(2).CIPS was composed of strongly distorted[InS_(6)]^(9-)octahedra and[P_(2)S_(7)]4-dimers constructed by corner-sharing[PS_(4)]^(3-),which increase the NLO efficiency and decrease thermal expansion anisotropy simultaneously.Compared with AgGaS_(2),CIPS exhibited strong phase matchable NLO response ca.1.1×AGS@2.1μm,high LIDT ca.20.8×AgGaS_(2),and IR transparency up to 15.3μm.Structural analysis and theoretical investigation confirmed that large SHG effect and ultrahigh LIDT of CIPS originated from the synergistic contribution of[InS_(6)]^(9-)octahedra and[P_(2)S_(7)]4-dimers.These results indicate that CIPS is a promising NLO candidate in the mid-IR region,and this study provides a new approach for developing potential NLO-LIDT compatible materials.

The influence of space environmental factors on the laser-induced damage thresholds in optical components

This paper systematically investigated the impact mechanisms of proton irradiation,atomic oxygen irradiation and space debris collision,both individually and in combination,on the laser damage threshold and damage evolution characteristics of HfO_(2)/SiO_(2) triple-band high-reflection films and fused silica substrates using a simulated near-Earth space radiation experimental system.For the high-reflection film samples,the damage thresholds decreased by 15.38%,13.12% and 46.80% after proton,atomic oxygen and simulated space debris(penetration) irradiation,respectively.The coupling irradiation of the first two factors resulted in a decrease of 26.93%,while the combined effect of all the three factors led to a reduction of 63.19%.Similarly,the fused silica substrates exhibited the same pattern of laser damage performance degradation.Notably,the study employed high-precision fixed-point in situ measurement techniques to track in detail the microstructural changes,surface roughness and optical-thermal absorption intensity before and after proton and atomic oxygen irradiation at the same location,thus providing a more accurate and comprehensive analysis of the damage mechanisms.In addition,simulations were conducted to quantitatively analyze the transmission trajectories and concentration distribution lines of protons and atomic oxygen incident at specific angles into the target material.The research findings contribute to elucidating the laser damage performance degradation mechanism of transmissive elements in near-Earth space environments and provide technical support for the development of high-damage-threshold optical components resistant to space radiation.

Non-blind super-resolution reconstruction for laser-induced damage dark-field imaging of optical elements

The laser-induced damage detection images used in high-power laser facilities have a dark background,few textures with sparse and small-sized damage sites,and slight degradation caused by slight defocus and optical diffraction,which make the image superresolution(SR)reconstruction challenging.We propose a non-blind SR reconstruction method by using an exquisite mixing of high-,intermediate-,and low-frequency information at each stage of pixel reconstruction based on UNet.We simplify the channel attention mechanism and activation function to focus on the useful channels and keep the global information in the features.We pay more attention on the damage area in the loss function of our end-toend deep neural network.For constructing a high-low resolution image pairs data set,we precisely measure the point spread function(PSF)of a low-resolution imaging system by using a Bernoulli calibration pattern;the influence of different distance and lateral position on PSFs is also considered.A high-resolution camera is used to acquire the ground-truth images,which is used to create a low-resolution image pairs data set by convolving with the measured PSFs.Trained on the data set,our network has achieved better results,which proves the effectiveness of our method.

A nodule dome removal strategy to improve the laser-induced damage threshold of coatings

Various coatings in high-power laser facilities suffer from laser damage due to nodule defects.We propose a nodule dome removal(NDR)strategy to eliminate unwanted localized electric-field(E-field)enhancement caused by nodule defects,thereby improving the laser-induced damage threshold(LIDT)of laser coatings.It is theoretically demonstrated that the proposed NDR strategy can reduce the localized E-field enhancement of nodules in mirror coatings,polarizer coatings and beam splitter coatings.An ultraviolet(UV)mirror coating is experimentally demonstrated using the NDR strategy.The LIDT is improved to about 1.9 and 2.2 times for the UV mirror coating without artificial nodules and the UV mirror coating with artificial nodule seeds with a diameter of 1000 nm,respectively.The NDR strategy,applicable to coatings prepared by different deposition methods,improves the LIDT of laser coating without affecting other properties,such as the spectrum,stress and surface roughness,indicating its broad applicability in high-LIDT laser coatings.

A novel laser shock post-processing technique on the laser-induced damage resistance of 1ωHfO_(2)/SiO_(2)

The laser shock processing implemented by a laser-induced high-pressure plasma which propagates into the sample as a shockwave is innovatively applied as a post-processing technique on HfO_(2)/SiO_(2) multilayer coatings for the first time.The pure mechanical post-processing has provided evidence of a considerable promotion effect of the laser-induced damage threshold,which increased by a factor of about 4.6 with appropriate processing parameters.The promotion mechanism is confirmed to be the comprehensive modification of the intrinsic defects and the mechanical properties,which made the applicability of this novel post-processing technique on various types of coatings possible.Based on experiments,an interaction equation for the plasma pressure is established,which clarifies the existence of the critical pressure and provides a theoretical basis for selecting optimal processing parameters.In addition to the further clarification of the underlying damage mechanism,the laser shock post-processing provides a promising technique to realize the comprehensive and effective improvement of the laser-induced damage resistance of coatings.

Annealing Effects on Structural,Optical Properties and Laser-Induced Damage Threshold of MgF2 Thin Films

The chemical structures, optical properties and laser-induced damage thresholds of magnesium fluoride films annealed at different temperatures were investigated. The results showed that the stoichiometry of MgF2 film changed a little with the increase in annealing temperature. Analysis of the optical properties indicated that excellent antireflection behavior of the film in the range of 200-400 nm can be obtained by the samples coated with MgF2 film. The refractive index increased and the extinction coefficient decreased with increasing annealing temperature. Compared with the asdeposited films, the laser-induced damage threshold was improved after annealing process and decreased with the increase in annealing temperature, which was probably due to the denser film and more absorption centers under higher annealing temperature.

Laser-induced damage threshold in n-on-1 regime of Ta_2O_5 films at 532,800,and 1064 nm

Ta205 films were prepared with conventional electron beam evaporation and annealed in 02 at 673 K for 12 h. Laser-induced damage thresholds （LIDTs） of the films were performed at 532 and 1064 nm in 1-on-1 regime firstly, and then were performed at 532, 800, and 1064 nm in n-on-1 regime, respectively. The results showed that the LIDTs in n-on-1 regime were higher than that in 1-on-1 regime at 532 and 1064 nm. In addition, in n-on-1 regime, the LIDT increased with the increase of wavelength. Furthermore, both the optical property and LIDT of Ta205 films were influenced by annealing in 02.

Effect of standing-wave field distribution on femosecond laser-induced damage of HfO_2/SiO_2 mirror coating

Single-pulse and multi-pulse damage behaviors of ＂standard＂ （with A/4 stack structure） and ＂modified＂ （with reduced standing-wave field） HfO2/SiO2 mirror coatings are investigated using a commercial 50-fs, 800-nm Ti：sapphire laser system. Precise morphologies of damaged sites display strikingly different features when the samples are subjected to various number of incident pulses, which are explained reasonably by the standing-wave field distribution within the coatings. Meanwhile, the single-pulse laser-induced damage threshold of the ＂standard＂ mirror is improved by about 14% while suppressing the normalized electric field intensity at the outmost interface of the HfO2 and SiO2 layers by 37%. To discuss the damage mechanism, a theoretical model based on photoionization, avalanche ionization, and decays of electrons is adopted to simulate the evolution curves of the conduction-band electron densitv during r^ulse dHratian.

Laser-induced damage thresholds of ultrathin targets and their constraint on laser contrast in laser-driven ion acceleration experiments

Single-shot laser-induced damage threshold(LIDT)measurements of multi-type free-standing ultrathin foils were performed in a vacuum environment for 800 nm laser pulses with durationsτranging from 50 fs to 200 ps.The results show that the laser damage threshold fluences(DTFs)of the ultrathin foils are significantly lower than those of corresponding bulk materials.Wide band gap dielectric targets such as SiN and formvar have larger DTFs than semiconductive and conductive targets by 1–3 orders of magnitude depending on the pulse duration.The damage mechanisms for different types of targets are studied.Based on the measurement,the constrain of the LIDTs on the laser contrast is discussed.

Multiscale analysis of single- and multiple-pulse laser-induced damages in HfO_2/SiO_2 multilayer dielectric films at 532 nm

Nanosecond single- and multiple-pulse laser damage studies on HfOffSiO2 high-reflection （HR） coatings are performed at 532 nm. For single-pulse irradiation, the damage is attributed to the defects and the electric intensity distribution in the multilayer thin films. When the defect density in the irradiated area is high, delami- nation is observed. Other than the 1064 nm laser damage, the plasma scalding of the 532 nm laser damage is not pits-centered for normal incidence, and the size of the plasma scalding has no relation to the defect density and position, but increases with the laser fluence. For multiple-pulse irradiations, some damage sites show deeper precursors than those from the single-shot irradiation due to the accumulation effects. The cumulative laser- induced damages behave as pits without the presence of plasma scalding, which is unaffected by the laser fluence and shot numbers. The damage morphologies and depth information both confirm the fatigue effect of a HfO2/SiO2 HR coating under 532 nm laser irradiation.

Effect of native defects and laser-induced defects on multi-shot laser-induced damage in multilayer mirrors

The roles of laser-induced defects and native defects in multilayer mirrors under multi-shot irradiation condition are investigated. The HfO2/SiO2 dielectric mirrors are deposited by electron beam evaporation （EBE）. Laser damage testing is carried out on both the 1-on-1 and S-on-1 regimes using 355-nm pulsed laser at a duration of 8 ns. It is found that the single-shot laser-induced damage threshold （LIDT） is much higher than the multi-shot LIDT. In the multi-shot mode, the main factor influencing LIDT is the accumulation of irreversible laser-induced defects and native defects. The surface morphologies of the samples are observed by optical microscopy. Moreover, the number of laser-induced defects affects the damage probability of the samples. A correlative model based on critical conduction band （CB） electron density （ED） is presented to simulate the multi-shot damage behavior.

Correlation of polishing-induced shallow subsurface damages with laser-induced gray haze damages in fused silica optics

Laser-induced damage in fused silica optics greatly restricts the performances of laser facilities. Gray haze damage,which is always initiated on ceria polished optics, is one of the most important damage morphologies in fused silica optics.In this paper, the laser-induced gray haze damages of four fused silica samples polished with CeO2, Al2O3, ZrO2, and colloidal silica slurries are investigated. Four samples all present gray haze damages with much different damage densities.Then, the polishing-induced contaminant and subsurface damages in four samples are analyzed. The results reveal that the gray haze damages could be initiated on the samples without Ce contaminant and are inclined to show a tight correlation with the shallow subsurface damages.