Direct comparison of laser-induced damage threshold testing protocols (Part II): Transmissive Optics and Monte Carlo simulations

Abstract

In the previous year’s work, we have shown that reporting laser-induced damage threshold (LIDT) as a single number might be misleading without mentioning the testing details. Furthermore, we also demonstrated that the longitudinal mode structure of the laser pulse could also lead to some discrepancies in LIDT estimates. A direct comparison of most popular testing protocols, namely 1-on-1, S-on-1, R-on-1, and Raster Scan was made for dielectric mirror coatings. In this year's study, we extended our work to new experiments on transmissive optics, namely uncoated fused silica and AR coatings. As in the previous study we used similar irradiation conditions: both single longitudinal mode injection seeded pulses as well as non-seeded multimode pulses with comparable effective pulse durations. Samples were tested using both first (1064 nm) and third (355 nm) harmonics of nanosecond Nd: YAG laser. In addition to experimental work, we also added a theoretical part that includes the results of pertinent Monte Carlo simulations. The experimental results and simulations are directly compared and discussed.