The damage property of oxyfluoride glasses irradiated by a 351 nm high fluence laser

Abstract

The laser induced damage property of oxyfluoride glasses irradiated by a 351 nm laser has been investigated. Two kinds of oxyfluoride glass (oxyfluoride1 and oxyfluoride2) have been prepared by different preparation technologies and their LIDTs (laser induced damage thresholds) are 9.0 J cm−2 and 13.6 J cm−2 respectively. It is found that the variation of LIDT in oxyfluoride glasses is associated with photoluminescence originated structural defects. Decrease of the photoluminescence intensity in an oxyfluoride glass could improve the LIDT of the material. Meanwhile, an experiment on damage growth has been presented, and the damage growth of oxyfluoride glasses develops in the longitudinal direction of laser propagation, which causes the transmittance loss to be limited once the damage growth occurs. Moreover, the damage growth stops when the laser fluence is below 70% of the LIDT.