Femtosecond laser-induced damage threshold of electron beam deposited dielectrics for 1-m class optics

Adrien Hervy; Laurent Gallais; Gilles Chériaux; Daniel Mouricaud

doi:10.1117/1.OE.56.1.011001

30 June 2016 Femtosecond laser-induced damage threshold of electron beam deposited dielectrics for 1-m class optics

Adrien Hervy, Laurent Gallais, Gilles Chériaux, Daniel Mouricaud

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Optical Engineering, Vol. 56, Issue 1, 011001 (June 2016). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.OE.56.1.011001

Abstract

In order to transport multi-petawatt (PW) femtosecond laser beams with large spectral bandwidth, specific mirrors have to be designed and manufactured. We report on an experimental study of the laser-damage resistance and other optical properties of coating materials deposited in a 1-m class coating chamber. The study is conducted on single-layer coatings deposited by electron beam evaporation at 500 fs. Based on the experience of large optics for nanosecond applications, hafnia and silica are particularly investigated. However, in the case of sub-15 fs, the spectral specifications for PW beam transport mirrors cannot be reached by classical high laser-resistant quarter-wave SiO₂/HfO₂ stacks. Therefore, we investigate the laser resistance of different dielectrics of interest deposited with electron-beam processes: Al₂ O₃, Y₂O₃, Sc₂ O₃, HfO₂, Ta₂ O₅, TiO₂. The influence of multiple pulse irradiations and environmental conditions, such as vacuum and temperature, is studied. With the investigation of multilayer stacks, we also show that there is no difference in behavior when a film is studied as a single layer or embedded in a stack. Based on these results, we were able to optimize high reflective (<99.5%), broadband (300 nm) and high laser-induced damage threshold (2.5 J/cm²) mirrors for PW applications.

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Adrien Hervy, Laurent Gallais, Gilles Chériaux, and Daniel Mouricaud "Femtosecond laser-induced damage threshold of electron beam deposited dielectrics for 1-m class optics," Optical Engineering 56(1), 011001 (30 June 2016). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.OE.56.1.011001

Published: 30 June 2016

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