PNNL

Abstract

This volume contains papers presented at the 35th Annual Symposium on Optical Materials for High-Power Lasers, held at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado, 22–24 September 2003. The symposium was attended by 125 participants from China, India, Russia, France, Germany, Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom. A meeting summary and some 75 reviewed papers appear. The book is divided into sections devoted to the following topics: thin films, surfaces and mirrors, fundamental mechanisms, materials and measurements, and finally, understanding optical damage with ultrashort laser pulses. Topics of interest to the high-peak-power and high-average-power laser communities in addition to damage issues related to various research efforts and commercial laser applications are discussed. Also discussed are improved scaling relations as a function of pulse duration in the femtosecond range, beam footprint size, and irradiation of optical materials with wavelengths down to the x-ray region. New sources at shorter wavelengths continue to be developed, and a corresponding shift in emphasis to short-wavelength and repetitively pulsed damage problems can be seen in some of these papers. Fabrication and test procedures are discussed particularly in the area of thin films. New materials and the implication of defects on the damage process are emphasized in addition to new reports of conditioning effects and damage repair or damage mitigation.