Effect of deposition method on laser-induced damage threshold for repetitive pulses

In this paper, we performed comparison of laser-induced damage threshold (LIDT) for ion-assisted deposition (IAD) and non-IAD coatings in nanosecond and femtosecond pulse ranges. S-on-I tests were performed for 10⁴ pulses at 1-kHz repetition rate. Equivalent BK7 substrates with the same surface roughness were coated for comparison of the two coating. The results were analysed using AFM and XRD. The difference in LIDT values for 130 fs pulses between the IAD optical coating and non-IAD coating deposited on the substrate with the same polishing quality was equal within range of measurement accuracy. In contrast to femtosecond pulses the LIDT values for the nanosecond pulses showed stronger and opposite correlation with the deposition methods.