Thermal ablation is quite a complex process in high energy continuous wave (CW) laser facility, and it is crucial to understand the damage mechanism for stable operation of laser system. In this paper, we observe the behavior of contaminants-induced damage via a self-build optics testing platform. The waveband of optical coatings (Ta2O5 and SiO2) under test is dedicated for the infrared. Based on 100kW level infrared CW laser, the thermal ablation process of the optical coatings and the substrate caused by typical surface contaminants (iron micro-particle) is recorded, which shows distinct results in many aspects. This work can be helpful for understanding the influence of contaminants and prevent the optical elements from thermal damage in high energy laser system.
Organic contaminants on optical components can degrade optical properties, thus limiting the energy enhancement of highpeak-
power laser systems. It is still challenging to remove organic contaminants on the SiO2 sol-gel antireflection film and
avoid damage. In this work, a low-pressure air plasma in-situ cleaning technique and a chemical reaction model of plasma
cleaning were proposed to study the removal of organic contaminants. The optical properties of sol-gel AR films suffered
from organic contaminants were evaluated by transmittance and laser-induced damage threshold, which recovered
completely after 5 minutes of plasma cleaning without damage. Meanwhile, the hydrophilicity of the surface and the
surface free energy were significantly increased after plasma treating. Surface composition analysis indicated that the CH
and C-C bonds were reduced considerably, while abundant C=C and C=O bonds were produced after plasma cleaning.
Optical emission spectrum analyzed the reactive species and its concentration in the air plasma as a reference for simulation.
The chemical interaction process of oxygen radicals with organic contaminants was simulated by reactive molecular
dynamics. The results can provide a guide for optical components in-situ cleaning.
The cleaning mechanism of optical surface particle contaminants in the light pneumatic tube was simulated based on the static equations and JKR model. Cleaning verification experiment based on air knife sweeping system and on-line monitoring system in high power laser facility was set up in order to verify the simulated results. Results showed that the removal ratio is significantly influenced by sweeping velocity and angle. The removal ratio can reach to 94.3% by using higher input pressure of the air knife, demonstrating that the air knife sweeping technology is useful for maintaining the surface cleanliness of optical elements, and thus guaranteeing the long-term stable running of the high power laser facility.
The laser-induced damage of fused silica optics significantly restricts the output ability of large laser systems. Hydrofluoric (HF)-based etching is an effective processing to eliminate impurities and mitigate subsurface defects. Traditional polished fused silica samples were etched for different time in a HF-based etchant (2.3% HF and 11.4% NH4F) assisted by a 1.3 MHz megacoustic field. The laser-induced damage thresholds (LIDT) were measured by R-on-1 method, and fourier transform infrared absorption spectras of the samples were obtained. The results of the LIDT demonstrated that the LIDTs of the fused silica samples increased after megacoustic field assisted etching. The more surface materials were removed, the higher LIDT was obtained. The analysis of the infrared spectra illustrated that structural densification materials were removed during the etching, and thus the LIDT can be improved.
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