Varied laser induced damage phenomena of gold coated gratings for pulse compression

• Varied damage morphologies of gold coated gratings have been observed in experiments.
• The electromagnetic field, temperature field and stress field in gratings have been calculated.
• The damage morphologies of gold coated gratings have been analyzed based on the calculated temperature and stress fields.

In this paper, gold-coated gratings for pulse compression have been prepared and their laser damage experiments have been performed. Varied laser damage morphologies have been observed: when a 60 fs-pulsed laser with energy density slightly higher than the damage threshold was used, damage morphology with a characteristic of discrete distribution of small pits was appeared. These damage pits are linearly distributed at the junction of ridges and grooves. If the laser energy density is much higher than the damage threshold, the gold films was overall ablated and the grating structure disappeared. Besides, if the gold film has poor adhesion, it was peeled off. When a 450 ps-pulsed laser with energy density slightly higher than the damage threshold was used, part of grating ridges will be ablated and an obvious line exists between the ablated area and the unchanged area. In theory, the laser induced temperature field and stress field in gold-coated gratings were calculated based on the electromagnetic field using the finite element method. It is demonstrated that the temperature and thermal stress distribution characteristics are affected by the laser heating rate and the heat diffusion time (the calculated diffusion time ranges from 6 fs to 450 ps), which determines the laser damage characteristics. The possible damage drivers have electron hydrodynamic pressure, thermal ablation and thermal stress.