TY - JOUR A1 - Mann, Guido A1 - Pentzien, Simone A1 - Krüger, Jörg T1 - Beam diameter dependence of surface damage threshold of fused silica fibers and preforms for nanosecond laser treatment at 1064 nm wavelength JF - Applied surface science N2 - Optical fibers made of fused silica are a common method of transmitting high laser pulse energies. Failure of those fibers is a significant risk. The determination of laser-induced damage thresholds (LIDT) on fiber end facets according to ISO 21254 standard is needed. In the past, single pulse nanosecond laser experiments showed an improvement of LIDT with increasing fiber core diameter for 1064 nm wavelength and a constant beam diameter of 50 µm. This paper pays particular attention to the influence of the laser beam diameter on damage resistance. All-silica fiber types (LEONI) with different core diameters (100–600 µm) were investigated using beam diameters in a range from 30 µm to 100 µm. For comparison experiments on fused silica preform material (Heraeus F300) were performed. On one hand, surface LIDT of fused silica preform material decreases significantly with increasing beam size. A model considering a random distribution of point defects explains the experimental data qualitatively. On the other hand, LIDT of fiber end facets stays constant. White light microscopy results suggest that the point defect density on fiber end facets is lower compared to the preform surface due to an excellent surface polish quality. KW - Laser-induced damage threshold KW - Nanosecond laser KW - Optical fiber KW - Fused silica KW - Spot size KW - Defect model PY - 2013 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apsusc.2013.03.088 SN - 0169-4332 SN - 1873-5584 VL - 276 SP - 312 EP - 316 PB - Elsevier B.V. CY - Amsterdam AN - OPUS4-28310 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Mann, Guido A1 - Jurke, Mathias A1 - Zoheidi, M. A1 - Krüger, Jörg T1 - Influence of mechanical stress on nanosecond laser-induced damage threshold of fused silica JF - Applied surface science N2 - Optical multimode fibers made of fused silica are widely used for transmission of high power laser pulses. Bending of fibers creates mechanical stress inside the material. The bend stress of a fiber can be calculated from bend radius, geometrical fiber parameters and Young's Modulus of the fiber core material and reaches typically values of 220 MPa. A thermo-elastic model of Kusov et al. predicts a quadratic dependence of laser-induced damage threshold fluence with applied stress. In the present study, fiber preform material F300 (Heraeus) was loaded mechanically with pressures up to 220 MPa representing 20% of the pressure resistance of fused silica. Bulk laser-induced damage thresholds (LIDT) were evaluated using a longitudinal multimode Q-switched Nd:YAG laser (1064 nm) at a pulse duration of 12 ns with polarization states parallel and perpendicular to the stress direction. LIDT of fused silica samples of about 700 J/cm2 were found. LIDT did not show a dependence on mechanical pressure and polarization state which is a consequence of the small ratio of maximum applied stress (220 MPa) to Young's Modulus of fused silica (72.5 GPa). KW - Laser-induced damage threshold KW - LIDT KW - Nanosecond laser KW - Fused silica KW - Mechanical stress KW - Optical fiber PY - 2012 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apsusc.2012.01.049 SN - 0169-4332 SN - 1873-5584 VL - 258 IS - 23 SP - 9153 EP - 9156 PB - North-Holland CY - Amsterdam AN - OPUS4-26225 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -