Study on laser damage of high transmission single layer optical thin film for fused silica glass induced by inclusion

Abstract

In order to research the laser damage mechanism of high transmission single layer optical thin film for fused silica glass, finite element method was used to calculate laser induced damage threshold (LIDT) and an optical test system with a nanosecond solid-state lasers was set up to determine the LIDT according to standard of ISO 11254. Firstly, finite element model was created at COMSOL multi-physics software and the temperature of inclusion in the optical thin film was calculated with different physical parameter. It is found that temperature at center of the inclusion firstly decreases and then increase with the increasing of inclusion depth. It is also found that the temperature constantly increase with the radius increasing from 20nm to 100nm. Moreover, the inclusion temperature for MgF2 thin film is higher than that of CaF2 thin film. Lastly, LIDT were measured by the optical test system, and the average value of LIDT is 3.7J/cm2 for MgF2 thin film and 4.6J/cm2 for CaF2 thin film, which is well fit with the value calculated by COMSOL software. The study shows that finite element method is an effective method to calculate LIDT for optical thin film and impurity has significant impact on the LIDT of optical thin film and therefore decreasing the density of the impurity would increase the LIDT of the thin film.