Waterproof coatings for high-power laser cavities

With the ever-increasing laser power and repetition rate, thermal control of laser media is becoming increasingly important. Except for widely used air cooling or a bonded heat sink, water cooling of a laser medium is more effective in removing waste heat. However, how to protect deliquescent laser media from water erosion is a challenging issue. Here, novel waterproof coatings were proposed to shield Nd:Glass from water erosion. After clarifying the dependence of the waterproof property of single layers on their microstructures and pore characteristics, nanocomposites that dope SiO₂ in HfO₂ were synthesized using an ion-assisted co-evaporation process to solve the issue of a lack of a high-index material that simultaneously has a dense amorphous microstructure and wide bandgap. Hf_0.7Si_0.3O₂/SiO₂ multifunctional coatings were finally shown to possess an excellent waterproof property, high laser-induced damage threshold (LIDT) and good spectral performance, which can be used as the enabling components for thermal control in high-power laser cavities.