Numerical simulation of the modulation to incident laser by the repaired damage site in a fused silica subsurface

One of the main factors of laser induced damage is the modulation to incident laser which is caused by the defect in the subsurface of the fused silica. In this work, the repaired damage site irradiated by CO₂ laser is simplified to a Gaussian rotation according to the corresponding experimental results. Then, the three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain method is employed to simulate the electric field intensity distribution in the vicinity of this kind of defect in fused silica front subsurface. The simulated results show that the modulation is notable, the E_max is about 2.6 times the irradiated electric field intensity in the fused silica with the damage site (the width is 1.5 μm and depth is 2.3 μm) though the damage site is repaired by CO₂ laser. The phenomenon and the theoretical result of the annular laser enhancement existed on the rear surface are first verified effectively, which agrees well with the corresponding experimental results. The relations between the maximal electric field intensity in fused silica with defect depth and width are given respectively. Meanwhile, the corresponding physical mechanism is analysed theoretically in detail.