A theoretical analysis for temperature dependences of laser-induced damage threshold

Abstract

The temperature dependence of the laser-induced damage threshold on optical coatings was studied in detail for laser pulses from 123 K to 473 K at different temperature using Nd:YAG laser (wavelength 1064 nm and pulse width 4 ns) and Ti:Sapphire laser (wavelength 800 nm and pulse width 100 fs, 2 ps, and 200 ps). The six kinds of optical monolayer coatings were prepared by electron beam evaporation and the coating materials were SiO₂, Al₂O₃, HfO₂, ZrO₂, Ta₂O₅, and MgF₂. For pulses longer than a few picoseconds, the laser-induced damage threshold of single-layer coatings increased with decreasing temperature. This temperature dependence was reversed for pulses shorter than a few picoseconds. We describe the physics models to explain the observed scaling. The electron avalanche is essential to explain the differences in the temperature dependence. In other words, the balance between linear process such as electron avalanche etc. and nonlinear process such as multiphoton ionization etc. will be able to decide the tendency of the temperature dependence. The proposed model also gives one of possibility for an extremely high LIDT optics.