Continuous-wave laser damage mechanism of a spectral combining grating

With increased power of spectral beam combination, surface heat distortion of multilayer dielectric gratings (MDGs) could occur. In this study, the damage morphology of MDGs was initially analyzed under a continuous-wave laser irradiation. Subsequently, the surface distortion and temperature rise of different MDGs were tested experimentally. The experimental results showed that the initial damage of MDGs was caused by the thermal stress. Further, the thermal stress of the multilayer dielectric films on the MDG surface was analyzed theoretically. The calculated results were in good agreement with the experimental results. The conclusions indicated that with the increase of the MDG surface temperature, the stress in the HfO₂ layers initially reached the stress damage threshold of the dielectric films and, therefore, the damage occurred.