He Shao-Bo

Two localized CO2 laser treatment methods for mitigation of UV damage growth in fused silica

Two methods: high-power, short-time, single-shot irradiation (Method A) and low-power, long-time, multi-shot irradiation (Method B) are investigated to mitigate the UV damage growth in fused silica by using a 10.6-μm CO2 laser. To verify the mitigation effect of the two methods, the laser induced damage thresholds (LIDTs) of the mitigated sites are tested with a 355-nm, 6.4-ns Nd:YAG laser, and the light modulation of the mitigation sites are tested with a 351-nm continuous Nd:YLF laser. The mitigated damaged sites treated with the two methods have almost the same LIDTs, which can recover to the level of pristine material. Compared with Method A, Method B produces mitigated sites with low crater depth and weak light modulation. In addition, there is no raised rim or re-deposited debris formed around the crater edge for Method B. Theoretical calculation is utilized to evaluate the central temperature of the CO2 laser beam irradiated zone and the radius of the crater. It is indicated that the calculated results are consistent with the experimental results.

Complexity analyses of multi-wing chaotic systems

The complexities of multi-wing chaotic systems based on the modified Chen system and a multi-segment quadratic function are investigated by employing the statistical complexity measure (SCM) and the spectral entropy (SE) algorithm. How to choose the parameters of the SCM and SE algorithms is discussed. The results show that the complexity of the multi-wing chaotic system does not increase as the number of wings increases, and it is consistent with the results of the Grassberger—Procaccia (GP) algorithm and the largest Lyapunov exponent (LLE) of the multi-wing chaotic system.

The Structure Evolution of Fused Silica Induced by CO2 Laser Irradiation

The structure evolution of fused silica induced by CO2 laser irradiation (with a wavelength of 10.6 μm) is studied in detail. In the non-evaporation mitigation process, the irradiation time should be long enough to completely eliminate damage. However, there is a raised rim around the mitigated site. The rim height is enhanced when the irradiation time increases, and the mitigated site can lead to off-axis and on-axis downstream light intensification. Volume shrinkage occurs during the irradiation and rapid cooling processes, and this may be due to a decrease in the Si—O—Si bond angle. The distribution of debris overlaps with the maximum phase retardance induced by stress. The debris arouses an enhanced light absorption in the region from 220 nm to 800 nm.

Incident laser modulation of a repaired damage site with a rim in fused silica rear subsurface

Local CO2 laser treatment has proved to be an effective method to prevent the 351-nm laser-induced damage sites in a fused silica surface from exponentially growing, which is responsible for limiting the lifetime of optics in high fluence laser systems. However, the CO2 laser induced ablation crater is often surrounded by a raised rim at the edge, which can also result in the intensification of transmitted ultraviolet light that may damage the downstream optics. In this work, the three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain method is developed to simulate the distribution of electrical field intensity in the vicinity of the CO2 laser mitigated damage site located in the exit subsurface of fused silica. The simulated results show that the repaired damage sites with raised rims cause more notable modulation to the incident laser than those without rims. Specifically, we present a theoretical model of using dimpled patterning to control the rim structure around the edge of repaired damage sites to avoid damage to downstream optics. The calculated results accord well with previous experimental results and the underlying physical mechanism is analysed in detail.

Mitigation of laser damage growth in fused silica by using a non-evaporative technique

A non-evaporative technique is used to mitigate damage sites with lateral sizes in a range from 50 μm to 400 μm and depths smaller than 100 μm. The influence of the pulse frequency of a CO2 laser on the mitigation effect is studied. It is found that a more symmetrical and smooth mitigation crater can be obtained by increasing the laser pulse frequency form 0.1 to 20 kHz. Furthermore, the sizes of laser-affected and distorted zones decrease with the increase of the laser pulse frequency, leading to less degradation of the wave-front quality of the conditioned sample. The energy density of the CO2 laser beam is introduced for selecting the mitigation parameters. The damage sites can be successfully mitigated by increasing the energy density in a ramped way. Finally, the laser-induced damage threshold (LIDT) of the mitigated site is tested using 355 nm laser beam with a small spot (0.23 mm2) and a large spot (3.14 mm2), separately. It is shown that the non-evaporative mitigation technique is a successful method to stop damage re-initiation since the average LIDTs of mitigated sites tested with small or large laser spots are higher than that of pristine material.

High temperature thermal behaviour modeling of large-scale fused silica optics for laser facility

High temperature annealing is often used for the stress control of optical materials. However, weight and viscosity at high temperature may destroy the surface morphology, especially for the large-scale, thin and heavy optics used for large laser facilities. It is necessary to understand the thermal behaviour and design proper support systems for large-scale optics at high temperature. In this work, three support systems for fused silica optics are designed and simulated with the finite element method. After the analysis of the thermal behaviours of different support systems, some advantages and disadvantages can be revealed. The results show that the support with the optical surface vertical is optimal because both pollution and deformation of optics could be well controlled during annealing at high temperature. Annealing process of the optics irradiated by CO2 laser is also simulated. It can be concluded that high temperature annealing can effectively reduce the residual stress. However, the effects of annealing on surface morphology of the optics are complex. Annealing creep is closely related to the residual stress and strain distribution. In the region with large residual stress, the creep is too large and probably increases the deformation gradient which may affect the laser beam propagation.

Effect of fused silica subsurface defect site density on light intensification

The effect of defect density on the modulation of incident laser waves is investigated. First, based on the actual defect distribution in the subsurface of fused silica, a three-dimensional (3D) grid model of defect sites is constructed. The 3D finite-difference time-domain method is developed to solve the Maxwell equations. Then the electrical field intensity in the vicinity of the defect sites in the subsurface of fused silica is numerically calculated. The relationships between the maximal electrical field intensity in fused silica and the geometry of the defect sites are given. The simulated results reveal that the modulation becomes more remarkable with an increase of the defect density. In addition, the effect of the distribution mode of defects on modulation is discussed. Meanwhile, the underlying physical mechanism is analyzed in detail.

High Efficient C6H12 Raman Laser Enhanced by DCM Fluorescence

We report the first-order Stokes output (wavelength of 627.6 nm) from C6H12 enhanced by DCM dye fluorescence with high energy conversion efficiency of 47.9%, quantum conversion efficiency of 56.5%. To our knowledge, it is the highest conversion efficiency of stimulated Raman scattering obtained from liquid Raman laser. A 532 nm frequency doubled Nd:YAG laser with 8 Hz repetition rate is employed as the pump source, and the enhancement medium is DCM dye solution in ethanol. The conversion efficiencies at various pump energies and various pump repetition rates are measured and analysed. The enhancement mechanism of SRS together with its potential application is discussed.

Numerical Investigation of Thermal Effect in Plasma Electrode Pockels Cell for High Average Power

The average power of a Pockels cell is limited by thermal effects arising from the optical absorption of the laser pulse. These thermal effects can be managed by configuring the switch as a plasma-electrode thin plate Pockels cell, which works under heat-capacity operation. Simulation results show that, based on KD*P (in thickness 0.5 cm) at an average power loading of 1 kW, the aperture integrated depolarization loss at 1.06 um is less than 10% in 5 min working time.

Temperature-related performance of Yb3+:YAG disc lasers and optimum design for diamond cooling

In this paper the temperature-related performances of the Yb3+:YAG disc laser has been investigated based on quasi-three level rate equation model. A compact diamond window cooling scheme also has been demonstrated. In this cooling scheme, laser disc is placed between two thin discs of single crystal synthetic diamond, the heat transfer from Yb3+:YAG to the diamond, in the direction of the optical axis, and then rapidly conducted radically outward through the diamond to the cooling water at the circumference of the diamond/Yb3+:YAG assembly. Simulation results show that increasing the thickness of the diamond and the overlap-length (between diamond and water) decreases the disc temperature. Therefore a 0.3?0.5?mm thick diamond window with the overlap-length of 1.5?2.0?mm will provide acceptable cost effective cooling, e.g., with a pump intensity of 15?kW/cm2 and repetitive rate of 10?Hz, to keep the maximum temperature of the lasing disc below a reasonable value (310K), the heat exchange coefficient of water should be about 3000 W/m2K.