The effect of an electric field on the thermomechanical damage of nodular defects in dielectric multilayer coatings irradiated by nanosecond laser pulses

Thermomechanical damage of nodules in dielectric multilayer coatings that are irradiated by nanosecond laser pulses has been interpreted with respect to mechanical properties and electric-field enhancement.However,the effect of electric-field enhancement in nodular damage,especially the influence of electric-field distributions,has never been directly demonstrated through experimental results,which prevents the achievement of a clear understanding of the damage process of nodular defects.Here,a systematic and comparative study was designed to reveal how electric-field distributions affect the damage behavior of nodules.To obtain reliable results,two series of artificial nodules with different geometries and film absorption characteristics were prepared from monodisperse silica microspheres.After establishing simplified geometrical models of the nodules,the electric-field enhancement was simulated using a three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain code.Then,the damage morphologies of the artificial nodules were directly compared with the simulated electric-field intensity profiles.For both series of nodules,the damage morphologies reproduced our simulated electric-field intensity distributions very well.These results indicated that the electric-field distribution was actually a bridge that connected the nodular mechanical properties to the final thermomechanical damage.Understanding of the damage mechanism of nodules was deepened by obtaining data on the influence of electric-field distributions on the damage behavior of nodules.

Nanosecond laser conditioning of multilayer dielectric gratings for picosecond–petawatt laser systems

Multilayer dielectric gratings(MLDGs)are crucial for pulse compression in picosecond-petawatt laser systems.Bulged nodular defects,embedded in coating stacks during multilayer deposition,influence the lithographic process and performance of the final MLDG products.In this study,the integration of nanosecond laser conditioning(NLC)into different manufacturing stages of MLDGs was proposed for the first time on multilayer dielectric films(MLDFs)and final grating products to improve laser-induced damage performance.The results suggest that the remaining nodular ejection pits introduced by the two protocols exhibit a high nanosecond laser damage resistance,which remains stable when the irradiated laser fluence is more than twice the nanosecond-laser-induced damage threshold(nanosecond-LIDT)of the unconditioned MLDGs.Furthermore,the picosecond-LIDT of the nodular ej ection pit conditioned on the MLDFs was approximately 40%higher than that of the nodular defects,and the loss of the grating structure surrounding the nodular defects was avoided.Therefore,NLC is an effective strategy for improving the laser damage resistance of MLDGs.