[en] The Laser Damage Group is currently conducting tests on small optics samples supplied for initial evaluation of potential NIF suppliers. This document is meant to define the specification of laser-induced damage for small optics and the test methods used to collect the data. A rating system which will be applied for vendor selection is presented

[en] As Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory moves forward with the design of the National Ignition Facility (NIF) in the Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) program, issues relating to the detection and measurement of laser-induced damage on large optics must be addressed. Currently, microscopy is used to evaluate surface quality and measure damage thresholds on small witness samples. In order to evaluate large areas, an automated system was constructed which can scan optics with dimensions as large as 1 meter and weighing as much as 400 pounds. The use of microscopy as the main test diagnostic has been replaced with an optical scatter detection system. Now large areas can be rastered, and maps can be generated, reflecting inherent and laser-induced scatter in multilayer optical coatings and bulk materials. The integrated scattered light from a test piece is measured in transmission using a HeNe laser as the probe source. When the probe beam is overlapped on a pulsed, high power, ND:YAG laser beam, damage related scatter may be measured. This technique has been used for: (1) mapping of inherent scatter in an optic, (2) on-the-fly damage detection during a high fluence raster scan of an optic, and (3) single site damage evaluation for the determination of a laser damage threshold. Damage thresholds measured with the scatter diagnostic compare within measurement error to those attained using 100 x microscopy

[en] The Laser Damage and Conditioning Group at LLNL is evaluating diagnostics which will help make damage testing more efficient and reduce the risk of damage during laser conditioning. The work to date has focused on photoacoustic and scattered light measurements on 1064-nm wavelength HfO₂/SiO₂ multilayer mirror and polarizer coatings. Both the acoustic and scatter diagnostics have resolved 10 μm diameter damage points in these coatings. Using a scanning stage, the scatter diagnostic can map both intrinsic and laser-induced scatter. Damage threshold measurements obtained using scatter diagnostics compare within experimental error with those measured using 100x Nomarski microscopy. Scatter signals measured during laser conditioning can be used to detect damage related to nodular defects

[en] The National Ignition Facility will require upwards of 25,000 small optical components in its various beam conditioning and diagnostic packages. A quality control program designed to ensure that the elements meet the required specifications will test these optical elements. For many of the components, damage performance is one of the critical specifications, which will require state-of-the-art performance from the industry participants. A program was initiated to understand the current performance level of such optics. The results of this study as it pertains to laser-induced damage is shown. The use of ratio reflectometry is also addressed as the method of choice for photometry measurements on these industry supplied optics. Key words: Optical coatings, qualification, specifications, laser-induced damage, photometry, ratio reflectometry

[en] The damage threshold specifications for the National Ignition Facility will include a mixture of standard small-area tests and new large-area tests. During our studies of laser damage and conditioning processes of various materials we have found that some damage morphologies are fairly small and this damage does not grow with further illumination. This type of damage might not be detrimental to the laser performance. We should therefore assume that some damage can be allowed on the optics, but decide on a maximum damage allowance of damage. A new specification of damage threshold termed open-quotes functional damage thresholdclose quotes was derived. Further correlation of damage size and type to system performance must be determined in order to use this measurement, but it is clear that it will be a large factor in the optics performance specifications. Large-area tests have verified that small-area testing is not always sufficient when the optic in question has defect-initiated damage. This was evident for example on sputtered polarizer and mirror coatings where the defect density was low enough that the features could be missed by standard small- area testing. For some materials, the scale-length at which damage non-uniformities occur will effect the comparison of small-area and large-area tests. An example of this was the sub-aperture tests on KD*P crystals on the Beamlet test station. The tests verified the large-area damage threshold to be similar to that found when testing a small-area. Implying that for this KD*P material, the dominate damage mechanism is of sufficiently small scale-length that small-area testing is capable of determining the threshold. The Beamlet test station experiments also demonstrated the use of on-line laser conditioning to increase the crystals damage threshold

[en] We built a bi-directional scatter diagnostics to measure and quantify losses due to scattering and absorption of harmonic conversion crystals (DKDP) for the National Ignition Facility (NIF). The main issues to be addressed are (1) amount of total energy reaching the target if the target hole was ±200 (micro)rad in size, (2) distribution of energy inside the target hole, (3) collateral damage of other optics by scattered light. The scatter diagnostics enables angle-resolved measurements at 351 nm, and is capable of both near specular transmission and large angle scatter measurements. In the near specular setup, the transmission can be measured within ±65 (micro)rad up to ±60 mrad acceptance angle. A silicon photo detector and a scientific-grade CCD camera provide total energy and energy distribution. A linear swing arm detection system enables large angle scatter measurements of 360^o, in principal, with step sizes as small as 0.01^o and different collection angle ranging between 1 and 20 mad. In this paper, scatter effects from laser damage and final finishing process of DKDP are discussed

[en] The Laser Damage and Conditioning Group at LLNL is evaluating diagnostics which will help make damage testing more efficient and reduce the risk of damage during laser conditioning. The work to date has focused on photoacoustic and scattered light measurements on 1064-nm wavelength HfO₂/SiO₂ multilayer mirror and polarizer coatings. Both the acoustic and scatter diagnostics have resolved 10 μm diameter damage points in these coatings. Using a scanning stage, the scatter diagnostic can map both intrinsic and laser-induced scatter. Damage threshold measurements obtained using scatter diagnostics compare within experimental error with those measured using 100x Nomarski microscopy. Scatter signals measured during laser conditioning can be used to detect damage related to nodular defects

[en] Laser-induced damage on optical surfaces is often associated with absorbing contaminants introduced by the polishing process. This is particularly the case for UV optics. Here secondary ion mass spectroscopy (SIMS) was used to measure depth profiles of finished process contamination on fused silica surfaces. Contaminants detected include the major polishing compound components (Ce or Zr from CeO2 or ZrO2), Al presently largely because of the use of Al2O3 in the final cleaning process (Fe, Cu,Cr) incorporated during the polishing step or earlier grinding steps. Depth profile data typically showed an exponential decay of contaminant concentration to a depth of 100-200 nm. This depth is consistent with a polishing redeposition layers formed during the chemo-mechanical polishing of fused silica. Peak contaminant levels are typically in the 10-100 ppm range, except for Al with exceeds 1000 ppm. A strong correlation has been shown between the presence of a gray haze damage morphology and the use of CeO2 polishing compound. No strong correlation was found however between high levels of Ce, or any other contaminant and the low damage threshold was observed. In fact one of the strongest indications of a correlation is between increased damage thresholds and increased Zr contamination. This suggests that the correlation between redeposition layer and laser damage threshold is not simple an absorbing contaminant issue

[en] Laser modulated scattering (LMS) is introduced as a non-destructive evaluation tool for defect inspection and characterization of optical surfaces and thin film coatings. This technique is a scatter sensitive version of the well-known photothermal microscopy (PTM) technique. It allows simultaneous measurement of the DC and AC scattering signals of a probe laser beam from an optical surface. By comparison between the DC and AC scattering signals, one can differentiate absorptive defects from non-absorptive ones. This paper describes the principle of the LMS technique and the experimental setup, and illustrates examples on using LMS as a tool for nondestructive evaluation of high quality optics

[en] For the aggressive fluence requirements of the NIF laser, some level of laser-induced damage to the large (40 x 40 cm) 351 nm final optics is inevitable. Planning and utilization of NIF therefore requires reliable prediction of the functional degradation of the final optics. Laser damage tests are typically carried out with Gaussian beams on relatively small test areas. The tests yield a damage probability vs energy fluence relation. These damage probabilities are shown to depend on both the beam fluence distribution and the size of area tested. Thus, some analysis is necessary in order to use these test results to determine expected damage levels for large aperture optics. The authors present a statistical approach which interprets the damage probability in terms of an underlying intrinsic surface density of damaging defects. This allows extrapolation of test results to different sized areas and different beam shapes (NIF has a flattop beam). The defect density is found to vary as a power of the fluence (Weibull distribution)