Effect of the repaired damage morphology of fused silica on the modulation of incident laser

Abstract Local CO2 laser treatment has proved to be the most promising method to extend the life-time of fused silica. However, previous experimental data show that some raised rims are observed around the mitigated sites left from the mitigation process, which will result in hazardous light modulation to the downstream optics. In this work, the morphology features of mitigated sites on the surface of fused silica optics were analyzed in detail. According to measured morphology features, a 3D analytical model for simulating the modulation value induced by mitigated site has been developed based on the scalar diffraction theory. The diffraction patterns at a discrete distance downstream from each mitigated site are measured. The influences of geometry, laser wavelength and refractive index of substrates on the modulation by repaired damage morphology at different distances are discussed, respectively. The analytical model is usable and representative to evaluate the hazardous modulation induced by repaired damage morphology to downstream optics. Results on this research suggest that the downstream intensification can be suppressed by controlling the morphology features of mitigated sites, which provides a direction for the development and improvement of the mitigated techniques of damage optics.