<title>Comparison of the damage frequency method and the binary search technique</title>

Abstract

This paper presents a direct comparison of the two major laser damage threshold measurement techniques, namely the binary search technique and the damage frequency method. The estimates of the laser damage threshold produced by each technique are compared using three different probability functions. A simple damage defect ensemble model for the damage probability is used as a control. The other probability distributions represent non-ideal cases and have tails in the region near threshold. It is shown that in the latter cases that both test procedures have difficulty in accurately and precisely reporting the threshold. The paper concludes that neither technique as presently formulated is sufficiently accurate or precise enough for applications requiring high confidence in the threshold measurement.