Towards predicting the laser damage threshold of large-area optics

As the size of optics increases, such as in the optical coatings being developed for the National Ignition Facility in US and the Laser MegaJoules in France, the difficulty also increases in measuring and defining their laser damage threshold. Measuring the threshold on small witness samples ({le}cm) rather than full aperture optic (=m) is advantageous, and in this article, the threshold of large-area components is addressed in two ways. First, a model based on the R-on-l threshold distribution is shown to predict the threshold of a large optic with a high degree of confidence. The average R-on-l threshold provides a reliable, accurate value to evaluate coatings. An automated damage test bench has been developed at CEA. Secondly, the damage threshold has to be defined according to final use of the component. LLNL has defined a functional damage threshold to set limits on maximum damage size. An empirical power law dependence of average damage size on peak fluence was found; this can be used to predict the damage behavior of large-aperture optics exhibiting the same damage morphology