CO2 laser microprocessing for laser

damage growth mitigation of fused

silica optics

Thomas Doualle
Laurent Gallais
Serge Monneret
Stephane Bouillet
Antoine Bourgeade
Christel Ameil
Laurent Lamaignère
Philippe Cormont

Thomas Doualle, Laurent Gallais, Serge Monneret, Stephane Bouillet, Antoine Bourgeade, Christel Ameil,
Laurent Lamaignère, Philippe Cormont, “CO2 laser microprocessing for laser damage growth mitigation of
fused silica optics,” Opt. Eng. 56(1), 011022 (2017), doi: 10.1117/1.OE.56.1.011022.
Optical Engineering 56(1), 011022 (January 2017)

CO2 laser microprocessing for laser damage growth

mitigation of fused silica optics
Thomas Doualle,a Laurent Gallais,a,* Serge Monneret,a Stephane Bouillet,b Antoine Bourgeade,b Christel Ameil,b
Laurent Lamaignère,b and Philippe Cormontb
a
Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, Centrale Marseille, Institut Fresnel UMR 7249, 13013 Marseille, France
b
CEA-CESTA, F-33116 Le Barp, France

Abstract. We report on the development of a mitigation process to prevent the growth of UV nanosecond laser-
initiated damage sites under successive irradiations of fused silica components. The developed process is
based on fast microablation of silica as it has been proposed by Bass et al. [Bass et al., Proc. SPIE 7842,
784220 (2010)]. This is accomplished by the displacement of the CO2 laser spot with a fast galvanometer
beam scanner to form a crater with a typical conical shape to mitigate large (millimetric) and deep (few hundred
microns) damage sites. We present the developed experimental system and process for this application.
Particularly, we detail and evaluate a method based on quantitative phase imaging to obtain fast and accurate
three-dimensional topographies of the craters. The morphologies obtained through different processes are then
studied. Mitigation of submillimetric nanosecond damage sites is demonstrated through different examples.
Experimental and numerical studies of the downstream intensifications, resulting in cone formation on the sur-
face, are presented to evaluate and minimize the downstream intensifications. Eventually, the laser damage test
resistance of the mitigated sites is evaluated at 355, 2.5 ns, and we discuss on the efficiency of the process for
our application. © 2016 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) [DOI: 10.1117/1.OE.56.1.011022]
Keywords: fused silica; mitigation; CO2; laser; laser-induced damage; microablation.
Paper 160864SS received Jun. 1, 2016; accepted for publication Sep. 19, 2016; published online Oct. 17, 2016.

1 Introduction surface. Thermal effects subsequent to absorption induce a

Fused silica material is used in a large variety of applications
in photonics. In the context of fusion class lasers [Laser
MegaJoule (LMJ), in France1 or National Ignition Facility
(NIF), in USA2], it is used to fabricate large aperture optics,
such as windows, lenses, gratings, or debris shields. In the last
section of the LMJ, the wavelength is converted to 351 nm to
be focused on the target. At this wavelength and in the nano-
second pulse regime, one of the major concerns encountered is
laser-induced damage of optical components.3 Although sur-
face polishing techniques have been considerably improved,4,5
defects (for instance: fracture related to the polishing process
or particular contaminant) can initiate damages at fluences
lower than the laser operation conditions. Under successive
nanosecond laser irradiations, the damage can grow, which
can make the component unsuitable.6–8 The lateral diameter
of laser-initiated damage located on the exit surface of
fused silica optic grows exponentially with a laser shot
number.9 Changes in diameter with increasing shot number go
with changes in the longitudinal structure of the damage site.
Typically, an initiated damage site of few tens of microns
diameter can reach submillimetric dimensions (few hundred
micrometers) after ten shots.
The localized CO2 laser processing has demonstrated its
ability to mitigate laser damage growth induced by nanosec-
ond, UV laser irradiation on fused silica surfaces.10–15 The
10.6-μm irradiation, by CO2 laser, is particularly adapted
and effective for fused silica components because the energy
is strongly absorbed within a few microns of the fused silica
*Address all correspondence to: Laurent Gallais, E-mail: laurent.gallais@
fresnel.fr
temperature gradient in the material, local melting and then
evaporation of the silica surface, leading to typically smooth,
Gaussian shaped pits, called craters. Material removal in the
crater, crack healing16 and defect annealing17 in the heat
affected zone, is the main physical mechanism that can be
used to mitigate laser damage growth. The process has, how-
ever, some detrimental effects: debris can be redeposited on
the surface and can reduce the laser damage resistance,18,19
thermo-mechanical residual stress can lead to birefringence
and potential reduced mechanical resistance,20–23 surface
profile modifications due to viscous flow, densification
and evaporation can induce light intensification on the down-
stream optics in the laser chain.21,24,25 Different approaches
have been proposed to manage these effects such as local
or furnace annealing to reduce the stress and increase the
LIDT,26–28 gas-assistance to reduce the surrounding rim,29
combination of CO2 laser processing with HF etching.13 The
potential and effectiveness of using a 4.6-μm CO2 laser was
also demonstrated to mitigate deep cracks because of a
longer penetration depth of the laser radiation in the silica.30
However, 10.6-μm CO2 laser remains a cost-effective solu-
tion for the particular application under study.
In order to mitigate large damage sites (millimetric) with
reduced residual stress and precise control of the crater
shape, a method based on fast microablation of silica has
been proposed by Bass et al.31 A crater with a conical
shape is realized by moving a CO2 laser spot with a fast gal-
vanometer beam scanner. The CO2 laser operates in a pulsed
mode (micro to millisecond) with sufficient delay between
0091-3286/2016/$25.00 © 2016 SPIE

Optical Engineering 011022-1 January 2017 • Vol. 56(1)

 Doualle et al.: CO2 laser microprocessing for laser damage. . .
pulses so that a very high temperature is reached rapidly to
evaporate the silica, and material has time to cool down
between pulses. In such conditions, thermocapillary flow
is limited and the raised-rim around the cone is minimal,
heat affected area and subsequent stress are reduced, and
high-evaporation rate ejects the material at high speed, which
limits the surrounding contamination. Such a process has
been successfully applied to recycle thousand of optics on
the NIF system.32
However, the process efficiency, more particularly the
laser damage resistance of the sites, depends on many factors
such as laser power, duration of the pulses, shape of the cone,
pattern used, environmental conditions (air flow, humidity),
or cleanliness of the substrate. In this context, the objective
of the present work is to evaluate a similar fast microablation
process for application to the Laser MegaJoule optical com-
ponents. In this paper, we present our experimental system
and process, the characterization techniques, and validation
of the procedure based on the laser damage resistance and the
downstream intensification level.
In Sec. 2, we present the experimental setup and the proc-
ess development. We describe also the characterization tools
used in this study for shape measurements, which are critical
for the application. Particularly, we detail and evaluate a
method based on quantitative phase imaging to obtain fast
and accurate three-dimensional (3-D) topographies of the
crater. We presented three different craters whose morpohol-
ogies were adjusted by the irradiation parameters. Mitigation
of submillimetric nanosecond damage sites is demonstrated
through different examples. Section 3 is dedicated to exper-
imental and numerical studies of the downstream intensifi-
cations resulting of beam propagation through a CO2 laser
processed crater. The experimental system for the measure-
ment of the intensity distribution after passing through the
treated sample and after propagation in air is presented.
The experimental results are compared to numerical simula-
tions for different crater shapes to find optimal process
conditions to minimize the intensifications in the LMJ con-
figuration. Finally in Sec. 4, we present the laser damage test
experimental conditions and procedures to evaluate the laser
damage resistance of the mitigated sites and discuss the effi-
ciency of the process for our application.
2 Experiments
2.1 Experimental Setup and Procedure
The fused silica used in this study is Suprasil 312 (Heraeus,
Germany) or C7980 (Corning). The samples have a diameter
of 50 mm and a thickness of 5 mm. These two materials have
different physical properties (silica type II or III) but previous
works have shown that the effect of CO2 laser heating of
silica at temperatures sufficient to remove some material is
the same for both materials.33 Therefore, we will not differ-
entiate these materials in this work. All samples were
polished by THALES-SESO using a “super-polishing” tech-
nology. The samples were cleaned before the experiments
using an automatic aqueous cleaning procedure, involving
ultrasonic immersion and detergents followed by deionized
water rinsing and drying.
A schematic of the experimental setup is shown in Fig. 1.
The source is a radio frequency excited CO2 laser (Rofin
SR10i, UK), operating at 10.6-μm wavelength, which can
Optical Engineering
Fig. 1 Experimental configuration. The inset is a zoom of the sample
area.
typically vary in the range 10.45 to 10.7 μm. At the laser
output, the beam is linearly polarized, with a diameter of 8

0.2 mm (at 1∕e2 ) and a divergence of 2 mrad. It delivers a
maximum output power of 120 W with an active power feed-
back system from the manufacturer to reach a stability of 2%
peak to peak and of 0.5% rms. In our experiments, we have
used the laser at its maximum modulation rate (130 kHz) and
duty cycle (60%), to reach a quasi-CW output. The laser
beam delivered to the sample was provided from the first
diffraction order beam generated by a germanium-crystal
acousto-optic modulator (AOM) (Isomet). It allows an accu-
rate control of the laser power, by adjusting the AOM volt-
age, and also control of the laser pulse duration (typically
100 μs) by the input transistor-transistor logic signal.
Because the output laser beam diameter of 8 mm measured
was larger than the 7-mm aperture of the AOM, we used a
beam collimator (two ZnSe lenses) to reduce by a factor 0.5
the laser beam diameter at the AOM entrance. The laser
beam (first diffraction order) passes through a XY scanning
head composed by two galvanometer mirrors with a 14-mm
useful aperture and a ZnSe lens with a 200-mm focal length
(Cambridge). In the focal plane, the spatial profile of the CO2
laser beam is Gaussian with a diameter of 400 μm at 1∕e2 ,
measured with the knife-edge method in both directions (the
ellipticity is < 0.95). A visible He–Ne probe beam coaxial
with the CO2 after the AOM was used to localize the area
of interest and align the system. An imaging system (EO-
1312, Edmund Optics) located behind the sample was
used to monitor the process in real time. The sample is
mounted on translation stages (Standa, Lithuania) to center
the area of interest with the CO2 laser and to translate the
sample in front of a characterization system that will be
described in the next part. In order to avoid the material rede-
position around the mitigated site, a vacuum nozzle has been
designed. This nozzle, which has an aperture of 3 or 4 mm
depending on the process, collects the ejected materials and
ejected debris. Its efficiency for laser damage resistance will
be discussed later.
As discussed in the introduction, the objective is to
develop a process based on microablation to mitigate
large laser-induced surface damages. Typically, the targeted
damage sites have a diameter between 100 and 700 μm and a
depth <200 μm. The damaged silica is ablated during the
011022-2 January 2017 • Vol. 56(1)
 Doualle et al.: CO2 laser microprocessing for laser damage. . .
displacement of the laser beam with galvanometer mirrors.
The displacement of the laser beam forms a series of concen-
tric circles so that we obtain a conical crater after operation.
A conical crater is a suitable shape for mitigation as
explained by Bass et al.31 Different shapes can be obtained
by changing parameters like laser power, pulse duration,
speed of the beam displacement on the surface or distance
between two concentric circles. There are multiple ways
to obtain a targeted shape and we give examples of the
processing parameters that have been used in this work in
Sec. 2.2. A main parameter is the delay time between two
pulses that is needed to cool the surface, as pointed out by
Bass et al.31
Figure 2(a) shows a 3-D measurement of a typical miti-
gation conical crater. We note on the two-dimensional (2-D)
representation [in Fig. 2(b)] a rim on the edges of the cone
resulting of material flow after the laser irradiation. This
measurement is obtained by an in-line phase imaging tech-
nique described in Sec. 2.2.
2.2 Morphology Characterizations
As described previously, the objective of the CO2 microabla-
tion process is to remove a large amount of material that
includes the damaged silica and its surrounding. However,
the final shape is critical because it modulates the wavefront
of the incident beam. During LMJ use, this wavefront modu-
lation can create high-intensity peaks in the beam. More par-
ticularly the wavefront modulation depends on the slope and
the dimensions of the cone but also on the rim on the edges.
In order to control and optimize this shape, it is first required
to measure the shape accurately.
A typical cone has a diameter of 2 mm and a depth of
500 μm, whereas the rim has a height of a few nanometers.
So, the characterization technique that needs to be imple-
mented must have a large dynamic range, a large field of
view (or the ability to stich images) and has to measure rel-
atively high slopes (around 30 degs) corresponding to the
slope of the cone. We have tested different commercial sys-
tems based on state-of-the-art techniques for that purpose:
confocal microcopy (TCS SPE, Leica, Germany), low coher-
ence interferometry (ZYGO New View 7300, Zygo Corp.),
and mechanical profilometry (Dektak, Bruker). Other tech-
niques such as optical coherence tomography34 could be
applied for this application but were not tested. It
appears that none of these techniques is well suited for
the application: stylus profilometry is a contact technique
(a)
0 µm
125 µm
250 µm
Fig. 2 Measurement of the surface profile for a typical conical crater, corresponding to “Process 1”
described in Table 1. (a) and (b) The 3-D and 2-D representations. The scale of (b) is adapted to
show the rim on the edges of the cone obtained during the microablation processing.
Optical Engineering 011022-3
that can be detrimental for the laser damage resistance of
the mitigated site, it is slow and does not have the submi-
crometer accuracy to resolve the rim; optical profilometry
is well suited to resolve the rims, but the steep slope of
the cone walls cannot be acquired, except with a high
numerical aperture objective, which is not compatible
with the large field of view required. This led us to develop
our own characterization system that is described below.
In a previous work,35 we demonstrated that 3-D topogra-
phies of CO2 laser processed silica sites could be obtained
thanks to quantitative phase microscopy based on wavefront
sensing.36 Based on this previous work, a new configuration
has been implemented to measure characteristics of larger
and deeper sites. Basically, sites are imaged in the sensor
plane of the wavefront sensor (SID4Bio, Phasics, France)
thanks to a camera lens (50-mm focal length, F/1.4 aperture,
Canon, Japan). A collimated red beam (laser diode at
685 nm, Thorlabs MCLS1) is used for the illumination in
transmission mode (Fig. 1). The principle of the measure-
ment is the following: we first measure a reference phase-
shift distribution from a site-free region of the sample.
Then, we measure the wavefront when the actual site of inter-
est is imaged. The difference between such a wavefront with
the reference one gives the optical path difference (OPD) dis-
tribution relative to the imaged site. Knowledge of refractive
indices of both silica and air allows us to retrieve 3-D shape
of craters from optical path images. The technique is self-
calibrated and was easy to implement on the CO2 laser
processing experimental bench as shown in Fig. 1. As a
result, we are able to record OPD images with high dynam-
ics, allowing to resolve both crater global shape (in accor-
dance with mechanical profilometry measurements) and
rims profiles (in accordance with optical profilometry mea-
surements) in a single shot. Limits are observed for a crater
depth deeper than 300 μm, where interferogram fringes are
no more resolved in wavefront sensor because of a too large
slope of the wavefront curvature.
Figure 3 shows a comparison between profiles obtained
by scanning-based calibrated instruments (mechanical profil-
ometry Bruker Dektak and optical profilometer Zygo New
View 7300) and our one-shot quantitative phase imaging.
Agreement between them is considered sufficient for our
application, so we will use quantitative phase imaging as
often as possible (crater depth <300 μm), because of the
much more convenient and rapid way to characterize sites
with such a technique.
(b) 0 0,5 1 1,5 2 2, 5 mm
0,5
1
1,5
2
mm
µm
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 Doualle et al.: CO2 laser microprocessing for laser damage. . .

50 0.4
(a) (b)
0
0.2
–50

Height (µm)

Height (µm)
0.0
–100

–0.2
–150

–200 –0.4

–250 Mechanical profilometry In-line phase imaging

In-line phase imaging
–0.6
Optical profilometry
Optical profilometry
–300
0.20 0.25 0.30 0.35 0.40
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5
Distance (mm)
Distance (mm)

Fig. 3 Comparison of depth measurements obtained with mechanical profilometry (black line), optical
profilometry (blue line), and phase imaging (red line) in the case of the Process 1 (presented in Fig. 2).
(b) A zoom on the raised-rim of the cone periphery.

2.3 CO2 Laser Processing of Damage Sites
The targeted damage sites to mitigate have typically a maxi-
mum diameter around 500 μm and depth of 200 μm (includ-
ing subsurface cracks). The dimensions of the conical crater
are chosen as a function of the diameter and the depth of the
damage to process.37 Different protocols have been devel-
oped with two different cone diameters (2 or 3 mm) to be
adapted to different damage sizes. The parameters are pre-
sented in Table 1.
Figure 4 shows an example of mitigation with a cone
diameter of 2 mm, named “Process 2.” The initial damage
site is obtained using a frequency-tripled Nd:YAG laser oper-
ating at 355 nm with an equivalent pulse duration of 2.5 ns
with a 0.6-mm diameter at 1∕e2 on the surface sample. More
details of the experiment setup are given in Ref. 38. We have
applied a sufficient fluence on the sample (>20 J∕cm2 ) to
initiate damage on the rear surface. Other shots, at lower flu-
ence (typically 8 J∕cm2 ), can be used to increase the dimen-
sions of the damage. In the presented case, we note that the
width of the damage is 550 μm, measured by a microscope
observation [Fig. 4(a)], for a depth of 90 μm, measured by
confocal microscopy [Fig. 4(b)]. Figure 4(c) shows the sur-
face profile obtained after CO2 processing of the cone and
the dashed square is the shape, which includes the damage.
We have realized several craters with the same processing
parameters on a surface with and without damages and we
have noticed that the cone shape in not significantly affected
by the presence of the damage.
Figure 5 shows an example of a larger (720 μm) and
deeper (190 μm) damage site than the previous (shown in
Fig. 4). We note the presence of large and deep subsurface
cracks [shown in Fig. 5(b)]. We have applied another process
(Process 3) for this bigger damage site. This process 3
requires 90 s, whereas the process 2 lasts only 30 s. If we
consider a damage site with a width of 700 μm, we are
able, with the process 3, to process damages with a maxi-
mum depth of 240 μm (red square in Fig. 4). This corre-
sponds to a diameter to depth of roughly 3, observed for
typical nanosecond laser damage sites.37 Macroscope obser-
vations are presented in Fig. 6 before (a) and after (b) the
laser processing.
3 Propagation
3.1 Experiments
The Epsilon bench has been designed to enable measurement
of light overintensification due to various optical defects. A
detailed description of the setup and its use for wavefront
roughness and waviness measurement can be found in
Ref. 39. A schematic view is shown in Fig. 7. A collimated
uniform laser wave at 351 nm is sent on the sample with
the defect to be characterized. A CCD camera (2048 ×
2048 pixels, pixel size is 7.4 μm) takes images of the dif-
fracted wave along its propagation in several planes, begin-
ning at the output of the sample. The field of view is
15 × 15 mm2 . An imaging optic is used for short-propaga-
tion distance to transfer the intensity map to the CCD sensor.
This imaging system is a 25-mm diameter lens whose focal
length is 75 mm. This configuration is classically used
for image transfer with a magnification coefficient of one.
Maximum intensity (normalized to average beam power)
is then reported as a function of propagation distance.

Table 1 Irradiation parameters for the three processes presented: the process 1 is a combination of two successive series of concentric circle with
a smaller diameter for the second series (1.7 mm) compare to the first one (2 mm).

Speed of beam Step between two

Process Cone diameter (mm) Pulse duration (μs) Pulse period (ms) displacement (mm/s) Laser power (W) circles (μm)

1 2 100 2 20 75 60

+ 1.7 100 2 20 75 40

2 2 100 2 20 75 30

3 3 100 2 20 82 40

Optical Engineering 011022-4 January 2017 • Vol. 56(1)

 Doualle et al.: CO2 laser microprocessing for laser damage. . .

(a) (c) 50

–50

–100

Height (µm)
–150

–200
500µ m
–250

(b) –300

–350 In-line phase imaging

Optical profilometry

90µ m –400
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5
Distance (mm)

Fig. 4 (a) Microscope observation of a damage site on silica. (b) Confocal profilometry measurement of
the damage. (c) Profile measurements of the site after damage mitigation (called “Process 2”).

(a) (c) 0

–50

–100
Height (µm)

–150

–200

–250

–300

(b) –350
Mechanical profilometry
–400
0,0 0,5 1,0 1,5 2,0 2,5 3,0 3,5
Distance (mm)

Fig. 5 (a) Microscope observation of a damage site on silica. (b) Confocal profilometry measurement of
the damage. (c) Profile measurements, by mechanical profilometry, of the site after damage mitigation
(Process 3). The dashed black and red squares correspond, respectively, to the shape of the damage (b)
and to the maximum depth for a damage with a width of 700 μm that it is possible to process.

Fig. 6 (a) Microscope observation of the damage site in Fig. 4. In-line macroscope observation for the
same damage (b) before and (c) after mitigation. (Video 1, MP4, 11.9 MB [URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/
1.OE.56.1.011022.1]).

Optical Engineering 011022-5 January 2017 • Vol. 56(1)

 Doualle et al.: CO2 laser microprocessing for laser damage. . .

circular mask. The central spot intensity has been minimized

with processes 1 and 3 by reducing the raised-rim on the
edge of the crater.

3.2 Numerical Approach

Fig. 7 Experimental configuration for light overintensification
measurements. In order to have a better understanding of the effect of surface
modification on the UV-laser beam propagation, we have
used a numerical approach. This work is based on a numeri-
Figure 8 shows that there is a strong overintensification on cal code developed for monochromatic continuous waves, i.
the first millimeters due to the light scattered by the cone e., waves with time-independent envelope. A 2-D-transverse
slope in a ring shape [see left picture in Fig. 8(a)]. This approach solves the corresponding 3-D envelope equation.
slope being high, this ring fades away quickly with propa- This code simulates the propagation of a plane or spherical
gation distance. After 300-mm propagation, process 2 shows wave behind a phase defect. It solves the envelope equation:
a new overintensification due to the presence of a high-inten-  2 
sity central spot. This spot may remind one of the classical ∂A 1 ∂ A ∂2 A
þ þ ¼ 0; (1)
∂z 2ik0 ∂x2 ∂y2
EQ-TARGET;temp:intralink-;e001;326;604

case of Aragos spot that appears in the shadow of a perfect

14
(a) Process 1
12 Process 2
Normalized downstream light intensity

2 mm Process 3
10
2 mm

0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700
Propagation distance (mm)

0.4
0 Process 1
(b) (c)
Process 2
0.2 Process 3
–20
Depth (µm)
Depth (µm)

0.0
–40

–0.2
–60

–80 Process 1 –0.4

Process 2
Process 3
–100 –0.6
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.20 0.25 0.30 0.35 0.40

Distance (mm) Distance (mm)

Fig. 8 (a) Normalized downstream light intensity for the three processes presented previously at different
propagation distances. The two insets are two images at propagation distances of 10 and 300 mm in the
case of process 3. (b) and (c) The zooms of profile crossing of the three cones generated during the three
processes tested in (a). (b) The slopes of the cones, which have an impact on the first downstream
intensifications [0 to 300 mm]. (c) The raised-rim of the craters, which produces a central light spot.

Optical Engineering 011022-6 January 2017 • Vol. 56(1)


35
Normalised downstream light intensity Without rim + classic tip
30
With rim + classic tip
25
20
15
10
5
0
0 100 200 300
Distance (mm)
Fig. 9 Downstream intensification (relative fluence maximum) as a
function of the propagation distance. Four profiles are compared:
a real cone with a typical rim of a few hundred nanometers and a
classical rounded tip (black line), the same cone with a perfect conical
tip (dashed black line), and both cones without rim (red lines).
where x and y are the coordinates in the transverse plane
and k0 is the wave number. Equation (1) is solved in the
Fourier space, where A is the electric field envelope corre-
sponding to a plane or spherical wave modified with a phase
term proportional to the CO2 processed site profile. For each
profile, the calculation is realized in three steps: first step for
propagation distance <12 mm, second step for propagation
distance between 12 mm and 10 cm, and the last step for
distance between 10 cm and 1 m. For the second and third
steps, we make an approximation of far-field propagation.
These three runs each <20 min on 4 nodes from Airain
CCRT (Computing Center for Research and Technology)
supercomputer. Each run computes the solution on a
16;384 × 16;384 2-D grid and for 40 different propagation
distances. The grid points describe a 6 mm × 6 mm square
in the transverse plane. More details are given in
Ref. 25.
In order to understand the impact of the different parts of a
mitigated damage profile on the downstream propagation, a
first series of computations was run with four different pro-
files. A typical one-dimensional (1-D) profile, extracted from
a stylus profilometer measurement, with a rounded tip and a
rim around the cone intersection with the surface was
retained. It was modified three times to suppress the rim or
to get a perfect tip or both. The four 1-D profiles were then
used to generate by rotation four 2-D profiles. The results in
Fig. 9 show that if on the one hand the tip acts on the near-
field over-intensities, on the other hand the rim is clearly the
cause of far-field high intensities. Based on this numerical
approach, it is, therefore, possible to estimate rapidly the
impact of fused silica surface defects on the UV-laser beam
propagation. Those calculations have, therefore, helped us to
improve our processes for damage mitigation.
4 Laser Damage Probabilities
In Secs. 2 and 3, we have defined the irradiation parameters
to mitigate laser-induced surface damages, and we have
studied the impact of the mitigated sites on laser beam
Optical Engineering
Doualle et al.: CO2 laser microprocessing for laser damage. . .
Without rim + perfect tip
propagation. We still have to control the laser damage resis-
tance of the mitigated site and to compare it to LMJ speci-
fication (14 J∕cm2 , 355 nm, 3 ns). The damage test
With rim + perfect tip experiment were made using a Nd:YAG laser with a 355-
nm wavelength, a 2.5-ns pulse length, and a 0.6-mm diam-
eter at 1∕e on the sample surface. The details of the experi-
ment have been presented in Ref. 28.
In this study, we have used a specific damage test pro-
cedure: the tests on the CO2 laser mitigated sites were
made by exposing each cone to single shots at different loca-
tions. Because the diameter of the laser processed zone is
larger than the test beam diameter, we applied the test pro-
cedure on specific zones. One can refer to Ref. 28 for more
details on the test procedure. Regarding the laser damage re-
sistance, it has been empirically identified that the weakest
400 500 600 700
zone of the cone is located in the crater surroundings. This
can be related to thermomechanical stresses22 or silica debris
that are redeposited on the periphery of the irradiated area
and potentially formed a ring around the crater.31 Therefore,
we have targeted these areas for the laser damage tests by
translating the component to specifically irradiate the crater
edge. By repeating the test to several sites (typically 5 per
fluence), we were able to obtain the laser damage probability
at a given fluence. Furthermore, to reduce the statistical error
and therefore measurement uncertainty, we have applied the
data treatment procedure described by Jensen et al.40 with a
calculation of error bars based on Ref. 7.
We have studied the laser damage probabilities for the
processes 2 and 3. The results are reported in Figs. 10(a)
(process 2) and 10(b) (process 3) with the black lines. We
note that the laser damage probabilities are different for the
two processes. The process 3 was realized with a higher power
than the process 2, and a larger volume of material was
removed. Potentially, there are more created debris, which has
an impact on the laser damage resistance. Moreover, a micro-
scopic observation made after laser damage tests indicates that
the damages were systematically initiated in an area surround-
ing the crater, as it can be seen in Fig. 11. A lot of debris can
be noticed on that area.
To reduce the redeposition of debris on surface, we have
used a vaccum nozzle. Most of the debris ejected during the
laser processing are collected. For both processes, we note an
improvement of the laser damage resistance with the aspira-
tion (red lines in Fig. 10). This improvement is in accordance
to results presented by Bass et al.31 In the case of the process
3, the increase of laser damage resistance is not as important
than for process 2. Indeed, due to the cone diameter, 2 mm
for the process 2 and 3 mm for the process 3, we have to use a
different nozzle exit diameter: 3 and 4 mm, respectively. This
change has an impact on the strength of the aspiration and on
the collection of ejected silica debris.
We have also investigated another solution to remove the
pollution on silica surface after laser irradiation aqueous
etching. After laser irradiation without vacuum nozzle, the
samples have been etched with hydrofluoric acid to remove
a silica slice, which was around 2-μm thick. After etching,
the laser damage resistance of the samples has been tested
in the same previous condition. The results are reported in
Fig. 10 with blue lines. It has been observed a significant
improvement of the laser damage probability of the etched
sites, compared to the initial cone and also compared to the
use of a vacuum nozzle. If we assume that the etching
011022-7 January 2017 • Vol. 56(1)
 Doualle et al.: CO2 laser microprocessing for laser damage. . .

100 100
Initial Initial
Nozle Vacuum Nozzle Vacuum
HF etching HF Etching
80 80
Damage probability (%)

Damage probability (%)

60 60

40 40

20 20

0 0
6 9 12 15 18 21 24 27 6 9 12 15 18 21 24 27
Fluence (J/cm²) Fluence (J/cm²)

Fig. 10 Laser-induced damage probabilities (1-on-1 mode, 355 nm, 2.5 ns) as a function of the fluence
for (a) process 2 and (b) process 3. Results are reported for the as-created cones (black line) and the
similar cones either using a nozzle vacuum (red line) or an HF etching (blue line).

simulations, we have shown that the downstream intensifi-

cation can be adapted with crater shapes decreased to accept-
able levels in the LMJ configuration.
During the processing, the high evaporation temperatures
result in material ejection and possibly redeposit on the silica
surface. This debris has an impact on the laser damage re-
sistance and we have shown two different ways to improve
it, by aspiration or etching.

Fig. 11 Microscopy observation of damages formed after laser
damage tests.
removes all the debris, we can estimate that our vacuum noz-
zle has not extracted all the ejected particles and could be
potentially improved.
5 Conclusion
In order to mitigate laser damage growth on fused silica opti-
cal components, a specific experiment was developed. The
presented method is based on fast microablation of silica and
can process large damage sites (submillimetric). The craters
created, with a conical shape, are obtained by moving a CO2
laser spot with a fast galvanometer beam scanner. Different
characterization tools are used for shape measurements. We
have particularly described and evaluated a method based on
quantitative phase imaging, which has a large dynamic range
to measure the whole profile and, also, precisely determine
the rim on the edges of the cone.
This laser processing technique limits the thermocapillary
flow and the raised-rim around the cone is minimal. As
a consequence, based on experimental studies and numerical
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