Effect of polishing contamination and surface defects for the LIDT has already been extensively studied in fused silica based transparent optics. The presence of contamination and damage layers on the surface of polished fused silica contributes to a large reduction in LIDT at ultraviolet wavelengths. The magnetic field-assisted finishing (MAF) technique has been shown to be successful in the fine finishing of optical components such as transparent Nd:YAG ceramics. Magnetic field-assisted finishing (MAF) with several tools has previously been applied to fused silica and was shown to improved surface LIDT at 266 nm.
In this paper, the damaged surface of fused silica with enhanced damage resistance after MAF was analyzed to classify the MAF processed condition. Irradiated energy density and damaged volume calculated from depth geometry were measured with a white color interference microscope (Zygo: Zegage). Fused silica substrates polished with CeO2 compounds were prepared as workpieces, and the surface roughness was about 0.3 nm Sq after optical polishing. Material removal over 100 nm occurred with the MAF process, however the final surface roughness did not change. The LIDT at a laser wavelength of 266 nm of processed surfaces was about 1.4 times higher than for the as-polished surface. The damaged volume of as-polished surface was linearly increased as increase in the irradiated energy density. In contrast, MAF processed surface showed little change for the damaged volume. The damage morphology will be also discussed.
The developments of ultra-high purity material which resist the damage by DUV laser are strongly required. According to the general mechanism of laser-induced damage, some kinds of defects and contaminations on the optical material are very important factors for DUV laser-induced damage. The borate crystal SrB4O7 (SBO) was reported to be a nonlinear optical material with a wide transparency down to 130 nm. In this study, we grew a high-quality SBO single crystal and measured the surface DUV laser-induced damage threshold (LIDT) in several polished conditions.
The SBO crystals grown over 13 days was 60 x 6 x 30 mm3 (a x b x c) without cracks or other defects. Two (020) plates were cut from the SBO crystal, and the both faces of the plates were optically polished. After that, we introduced catalyst-referred etching (CARE) to the one plate in order to atomically produce flat and damage-free SBO surfaces. As a result of the CARE treatment at a removal rate of 364 nm/h, the surface condition changed drastically, and a linear step-and-terrace structure was grew with a step height of 0.2 nm.
The surface LIDT in several polished conditions were measured with a 1-on-1 method at 266 nm (5 ns pulse width). The polarization direction was parallel to the c-axis of the (020) sample. Synthetic silica was also evaluated for comparison. The surface LIDT (17.3 J/cm2) of SBO after optical polishing is 4.3 times that of synthetic silica (4.0 J/cm2). In addition, the surface LIDT (24.1 J/cm2) of CARE-treated SBO is 6.0 times that of synthetic silica. This suggests that CARE-treated SBO crystals are a promising material for optical components in high-power DUV laser systems.
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