In general, there are just a few numbers of available dielectric materials suitable to produce laser optics. Such binary dielectric films are limited by fixed optical properties e.g. index of refraction and intrinsic laser induced damage threshold (LIDT). Optical properties of dielectric layers need to be manipulated precisely for further improvement. One approach is given by the deposition of ternary composites. The other approach is well known for crystalline materials and takes benefit of quantized effects. In the last years it could be shown that such effects can be utilized in amorphous dielectric layers as well. As a major benefit quantized nanolaminates enable the possibility to keep the index of refraction high with improved optical band gap. This proceeding gives an overview about key experiments of manufactured dielectric quantized nanolaminate samples and its advantages compared to ternary composites.
Latest advances of high intensity laser facilities enable the beam transport of petawatt laser pulses and can provide novel fundamental insights in high energy plasma physics or laser fusion. The very high peak intensities put enormous demands on the required large sized optics. Beam transport mirrors reflect pulses with only several tens of fs and maintain their phase while providing best possible laser induced damage threshold. State of the art, such mirrors are mostly manufactured by thermal evaporation techniques as they provide a large and uniform deposition area. Their porous layer structure causes changing spectral characteristics and wavefront when vacuum-air cycled. Especially large sized mirrors can show crazing and thereby decrease up-time of PW beamlines. In contrast, sputtered layers are very compact and provide non changing characteristics. Stable and reproducible sputter processes enable the deposition of more complex design structures necessary for further optimization of the laser induced damage threshold. However, deposition rate is slow and an uniform large sized area difficult to achieve for sputtered coatings. In our study, we show a self-constructed and built-up ion beam sputtering (IBS) machine capable to deposit large sized substrates up to a diameter of 550 mm. A design study is presented to evaluate best HR810nm mirror to meet demanding spectral requirements and providing maximized laser damage threshold for HAPLS at ELI beamlines. In the end, a field optimized design is applied with a measured LIDT of 0.9 J/cm2 at 42 fs and 1 kHz. This design is used to manufacture beam transport mirrors for HAPLS applying IBS.
We propose a figure of merit that characterizes the femtosecond laser damage behavior of optical coatings. This figure of merit, based on the complete spatiotemporal evolution of the field in a multilayer system, can be included in optics design. The monochromatic intensity enhancement widely used in “electric field-engineering” is sufficient only in certain structures such as high-reflectivity quarter-wave mirrors. In more complex systems, for example, in group delay dispersion mirrors and frequency tripling mirrors, one should consider the actual (typically smaller) intensity enhancement produced by short pulses and the change (typically increase) of pulse duration within the stack.
When designing femtosecond laser mirrors, one tries to minimize the peak intensity within the high-index layers to increase the laser-induced damage threshold. Typically, the optimization procedure utilizes the electric field distribution in the layer stack generated by monochromatic irradiation. This approach is sufficient for certain structures like high-reflectors based on quarter-wave films. More complex structures require to take into account the exact evolution of the pulse parameters such as peak intensity and duration within the multi-layer system. We exemplify this by discussing a merit function that can be included in femtosecond optics design.
We have studied laser induced material modification in a frequency tripling mirror (FTM) consisting of alternating hafnia and silica layers. The third-harmonic signal generated by a train of femtosecond laser pulses (791 nm, 55 fs, 110 MHz) drops over time until it reaches about 20% of the initial value. From the observed changes in reflection and transmission of the mirror a refractive index change of 0.07 was estimated, which occurs in the layer with the highest field enhancement. This index change triggers a drop in the field enhancement, which reduces the efficiency of nonlinear optical processes. The estimated value of ▵n allowed us to explain the 80% reduction in conversion efficiency and as well as an observed decrease in two-photon absorption.
The defect densities controlling the LIDT of three HfO2 films with different underlying interfaces were measured using STEREO-LID. This technique measures the actual damage fluence during a 1-on-1 test. The films were tested with pulses of ~10 ns duration at 1064 nm. The 30-nm HfO2 films were prepared by ion-beam sputtering: the first was deposited directly on a fused silica substrate; the second was deposited after first laying down a half-wave buffer layer of SiO2; the third was deposited on a half-wave SiO2 buffer with a gradual transition to HfO2. The buffer layer reduces the density of defects triggering damage at low fluence by more than a factor of two, but the gradual interface slightly adds to the defect density. The implications of these results are compared to the damage behavior of a thicker (quarter-wave) HfO2 film.
Ultra-short laser applications require high quality dielectric optics. The natural dispersion of light needs to be matched by dielectric components. However such dispersive components are very challenging for the deposition process and are characterized by high field intensities inside the layer stack. Such layers are expected to diminish the possible laser induced damage thresholds (LIDTs) because of their low optical gap value for suitable high refractive index materials. This paper reports about the manufacturing of amorphous nanolaminates to tune the optical gap. Such sequences are substituted into a conventional high reflective mirror to decrease the electric field of binary Tantala layers by 30 % which correlates to an improvement in LIDT of almost 16%.
The scientific background in the field of the laser induced damage processes in optical coatings has been significantly extended during the last decades. Especially for the ultra-short pulse regime a clear correlation between the electronic material parameters and the laser damage threshold could be demonstrated. In the present study, the quantization in nanolaminates is investigated to gain a deeper insight into the behavior of the blue shift of the bandgap in specific coating materials as well as to find approximations for the effective mass of the electrons. The theoretical predictions are correlated to the measurements.
New ultrashort pulse laser systems exhibit an ever increasing performance which includes shorter pulses and higher
pulse energies. Optical components used in these systems are facing increasing requirements regarding their durability,
and therefore understanding of the damage mechanism is crucial. In the ultra-short pulse regime electron ionization
processes control the damage mechanisms. For the single wavelength, single pulse regime the Keldysh [1] and the Drude
model [2] allow a quantitative description of these ionization processes. However, in this model, the electrical field is
restricted to a single wavelength, and therefore it cannot be applied in the case of irradiation with two pulses at different
wavelengths. As frequency conversion is becoming more common in ultra-short pulse applications, further research is
needed in this field to predict the damage resistance of optical components. We investigate the damage behavior of high
reflective mirrors made of different metal oxide materials under simultaneous exposure to ultra-short pulses at the
wavelengths 387.5 nm and 775 nm, respectively.
The present contribution is addressed to an improved method to fabricate dielectric dispersive compensating mirrors (CMs) with an increased laser induced damage threshold (LIDT) by the use of ternary composite layers. Taking advantage of a novel in-situ phase monitor system, it is possible to control the sensitive deposition process more precisely. The study is initiated by a design synthesis, to achieve optimum reflection and GDD values for a conventional high low stack (HL)n. Afterwards the field intensity is analyzed, and layers affected by highest electric field intensities are exchanged by ternary composites of TaxSiyOz. Both designs have similar target specifications whereby one design is using ternary composites and the other one is distinguished by a (HL)n. The first layers of the stack are switched applying in-situ optical broad band monitoring in conjunction with a forward re-optimization algorithm, which also manipulates the layers remaining for deposition at each switching event. To accomplish the demanded GDD-spectra, the last layers are controlled by a novel in-situ white light interferometer operating in the infrared spectral range. Finally the CMs are measured in a 10.000 on 1 procedure according to ISO 21254 applying pulses with a duration of 130 fs at a central wavelength of 775 nm to determine the laser induced damage threshold.
During the last years, optical low loss components gained more and more industrial interest and led to novel approaches for the production in optical coating technology. The application of filtered deposition technologies promises a significant reduction of particle contamination. Usually, filtered techniques are applied in combination with processes which produce a high level of undesired particles, like the cathodic arc deposition. In the present contribution, a magnetic field filter is applied in combination with a high quality ion beam sputtering process. The focus of the investigation constitutes the modulation of the guiding process with respect to the guiding efficiency. Numerical investigations reveal the trajectories of the ions during the guiding process and allow to analyze the influence of the magnetic field and the resulting electrostatic potential. In this study, the guiding effect is observed to be dominated by the electric potential compared to the magnetic field. However according to the simulations, very high ion guiding efficiencies can be achieved using moderate magnetic fields and electrical potentials. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that the experiemental and calculated efficiencies agree well. Consequently, the simulation is the basis for a further optimization of the filtered ion beam sputtering processes.
In the presented work a fast frequency domain measurement system to determine group delay (GD) and group delay dispersion (GDD) of optical coatings is proposed. The measurements are performed in situ directly on moving substrates during the thin film coating process. The method is based on a Michelson interferometer, which is equipped with a high power broad band light source and a fast spectrometer. Especially for the production of chirped mirrors it is advantageous to obtain group delay and group delay dispersion data of the last layers. This additional information allows for online corrections of coating errors to enhance the precision of complex interference filters for short pulse applications.
The present contribution is concentrated on an improved method to manufacture dielectric dispersion compensating mirrors in the ultra violet (UV) range by applying a novel online phase monitoring device. This newly developed measurement tool monitors the group delay (GD) and group delay dispersion (GDD) of the electromagnetic field in situ during the deposition of the layer system. Broad band monitoring of the phase enhances the accuracy in the near infrared spectral range (NIR), significantly. In this study, the correlation of the GDD in the NIR and in the UV spectral range is investigated. A design synthesis is introduced to achieve optimum reflection and GDD target values in the UV and NIR. This requires a similar behavior of both bands according to deposition errors, to guarantee switching off the UV GDD target band proper, while monitoring the GDD in the NIR spectral range. The synthesis results in a design, characterized by a GDD of -100fs2±20fs2 between 330nm and 360nm in the UV and by -450fs2±10fs2 within 820nm to 870nm in the NIR. The fabricated sample, applying an ion beam sputtering process, consists of a 9μm layer stack of Hafnium oxide and Silicon dioxide. The first layers of the stack are switched and controlled by a conventional in situ spectrometric broad band monitoring in conjunction with a forward re-optimization algorithm, which also manipulates the layers remaining for deposition at each switching event. To accomplish the demanded GDD-spectra, the last layers are controlled by the novel in situ GDD monitor.
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