Method of mitigation laser-damage growth on fused silica surface.

A reliable method, combining femtosecond (fs) laser mitigation and chemical (HF) etching, has been developed to mitigate laser-damage growth sites on a fused silica surface. A rectangular mitigation site was fabricated by an fs laser with a raster scan procedure; HF etching was then used to remove the redeposition material. The results show that the mitigation site exhibits good physical qualities with a smooth bottom and edge. The damage test results show that the growth threshold of the mitigation sites increases. Furthermore, the structural characteristic of samples was measured by a photoluminescence (PL) spectrometer, and the light intensification caused by damage and mitigation sites was numerically modeled by the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD). It revealed that the removal of damaged material and structure optimization contribute to the increase of the damage growth threshold of the mitigation site.