Meet Lidaris at OCLA 9th Symposium 2024

The landscape of laser technology is undergoing a transformative shift, marked by pronounced trends towards higher pulse repetition rates and shorter pulse durations. Depending on laser beam size, peak intensity, spectral range, working environment, etc., optics degrade rather quickly, eventually experiencing catastrophic failure. Traditional methods used to characterize laser damage performance under such conditions are no longer sufficient and need to be extended.

In this presentation,  insights from recent testing experiences at LIDARIS will be shared focusing on the exploration of optics lifetime through an extended S-on-1 testing approach. It will be shown, that  distinct categories of laser damage may manifest on dielectric optics. Such failure modes, characterized by non-catastrophic color change or catastrophic crater formation, can coexist independently. Our analysis reveals that segregating these damage modes in statistics enables the estimation of how rapidly optics deviate from their specified properties over time. Moreover, these trends can also be used to predict the useful life of optics.

In essence, the capability to predict optics lifetime opens new possibilities for further advancement of laser optics, thereby mitigating failures in femtosecond laser systems.