Laser induced damage characteristics of fused silica optics treated by wet chemical processes

Laser damage to fused silica continues a main issue of high-power/energy laser systems. HF-based etching technique is known to mitigate laser damage initiation and growth under UV laser illumination. The responses of material surface properties, especially surface damage characteristics to various etching parameters are questioned in the article. Fused silica was submerged into HF-based etchants (HF, NH4F:HF, HF:HNO3 with diverse concentrations) in an attempt to improve its laser-induced damage threshold (LIDT). The results have evidenced that the LIDT relies on, to a greater degree, the etched thickness and the etchant composition. The secondary ion mass spectrometer (SIMS) testing was aimed at relating the LIDT to certain metallic contaminant; however, the LIDT exhibits weak direct correlation with Ce, La, Ca, Fe contaminants. The surfaces with the highest LIDT are, more often than not, such that the surface roughness is <10 nm RMS and few metallic impurities are present. In addition, we tried to link the LIDT to the hardness and Young's modulus of fused silica, but no testing data show that there exists direct dependence of the LIDT on hardness and Young's modulus, which are actually independent of the removed thickness.