Laser Component Endurance
More and more space projects related to high energy laser are asking for long term irradiation of representative flight system to predict the long term behavior of the optics and optical coatings. The Laser-Induced Damage Threshold is an indication of the quality of the optics and can give a trend on the degradation of the optics subjected to a high number of pulses. TEC-MME section built a dedicated bench for the irradiation of optical coatings or complete optical system fully automated.
The source is a ND:YAG laser (100 HZ) at 1064 nm and its harmonics. The parameters for fluence and beam size can be adjusted as a customer input requirements. Energy, beam profile, fluorescence, hot pixels, are monitored along the entire duration of the test. Transmission is computed in real time and overfluence protection system can be activated to prevent hot pixel damaging the sample/system under test. A number of protection mode (maximum fluence, loss in transmission, energy decrease, etc) can be implemented and used as input for the closing of a shutter that will prevent the irradiation of the optics under undesirable conditions.