Abstract
Dielectric components are essential for laser applications. Chirped mirrors are applied to compress the temporal pulse broadening crucial in the femtosecond regime. However, the design sensitivity and the electric field distribution of chirped mirrors is complex often resulting in low laser induced damage resistances. An approach is presented to increase the damage resistance of pulse compressing mirrors up to 190% in the NIR spectral range. Layers with critical high field intensity of a binary mirror design are substituted by ternary composites and quantized nanolaminates, respectively. The deposition process is improved by an in situ technique monitoring the phase of reflectance.
Highlights
The rapid development of ultra-fast laser applications imposes high demands on dielectric optics designed for the femtosecond regime
The laser induced damage threshold (LIDT) is decreased for dielectric amorphous high refractive index materials compared to low refractive index materials characterized by higher optical gap values [7]
The electric field distribution of high refractive index layers inside the layer stack is analyzed, and critical layers are substituted by stacks with improved optical gap values to enhance the laser induced damage threshold (LIDT)
Summary
The rapid development of ultra-fast laser applications imposes high demands on dielectric optics designed for the femtosecond regime. In order to achieve further progresses, novel design techniques are required to substitute high field intensity layers by materials with adjustable optical gap values and indices of refraction. In recent studies the change of the electron confinement of dielectric materials was successfully demonstrated in elementary studies [13, 14] In this contribution, the fabrication of nanolaminates and ternary oxides are investigated to increase the laser induced damage threshold of chirped mirrors by substituting critical layers affected by high field intensities with these novel materials. Single ternary composite layers are compared to equivalent nanolaminate stacks with respect to the evolution of the optical gap in contrast to the refractive index and laser induced damage thresholds. The novel design approaches for the chirped mirrors are qualified by LIDT measurements in the fs regime according to ISO 21254 [16]
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