515-nm, femtosecond laser mirror thin film damage competition

This year’s competition is a continuation of the 2020 thin film damage competition conducted with nanosecond (ns) laser pulses and aimed to survey state-of-the-art visible high reflectors in the femtosecond (fs) pulse length regime. The requirements for the coatings were a minimum reflection of 99.5% at 0 degrees incidence angle at 532 nm. The fs-laser source available for testing in 2021 delivered pulses at 515 nm; as a result, to accommodate both ns- and fs-damage tests on the same samples, the latter tests were conducted at an incidence angle of 25 degrees to re-center the reflection spectral band of the coatings, i.e., a blue shift from 532 nm to 515 nm. The choice of coating materials, design, and deposition method were left to the participants. Laser damage testing of samples received in 2020 and new sample submissions in 2021 was per- formed at a single testing facility using the S-on-1 standardized test protocol with a 200-fs pulse length laser system operating at 5 kHz in a single-longitudinal mode. A double-blind test assured sample and submitter anonymity. The damage performance results (LIDT), sample rankings, details of the deposition processes, coating materials and substrate cleaning methods are shared. These experiments enabled not only direct comparison among the participants but also the performance contrast in two different pulse length regimes. We found that different deposition methods and coating materials yield comparably high laser resistance in the fs-pulse regime. Namely, hafnia/silica, hafnia/alumina/silica or tantala/alumina/silica multilayer coatings were the most damage resistant under exposure to fs-laser pulses within the coating deposition groups. In contrast, hafnia/silica coatings by e-beam were identified as best performers in the ns-pulse regime.