Effect of standing-wave field distribution on femosecond laser-induced damage of HfO_2/SiO_2 mirror coating

Single-pulse and multi-pulse damage behaviors of "standard"(with λ/4 stack structure) and "modified"(with reduced standing-wave field) HfO2/SiO2 mirror coatings are investigated using a commercial 50-fs,800-nm Ti:sapphire laser system.Precise morphologies of damaged sites display strikingly different features when the samples are subjected to various number of incident pulses,which are explained reasonably by the standing-wave field distribution within the coatings.Meanwhile,the single-pulse laser-induced damage threshold of the "standard" mirror is improved by about 14% while suppressing the normalized electric field intensity at the outmost interface of the HfO2 and SiO2 layers by 37%.To discuss the damage mechanism,a theoretical model based on photoionization,avalanche ionization,and decays of electrons is adopted to simulate the evolution curves of the conduction-band electron density during pulse duration.