Fabrication of spherical mitigation pit on KH2PO4 crystal by micro-milling and modeling of its induced light intensification

Micro-machining is the most promising method for KH2PO4 crystal to mitigate the surface damage growth in high power laser system. In this work, spherical mitigation pit is fabricated by micro-milling with an efficient machining procedure. The light intensification caused by rear surface features before and after mitigation is numerically modeled based on the finite-difference time-domain method. The results indicate that the occurrence of total internal reflections should be responsible for the largest light intensification inside the crystal. For spherical pits after mitigation, the light intensification can be greatly alleviated by preventing the occurrence of total internal reflections. The light intensification caused by spherical mitigation pit is strongly dependent on the width-depth ratio and it is suggested that the width-depth ratio of spherical mitigation pit must be devised to be larger than 5.0 to achieve the minimal light intensification for the mitigation of surface damage growth. Laser damage tests for KH2PO4 crystal validate that the laser damage resistance of initially damaged surface can be retrieved to near the level of ideal surface by replacing initial damage site with predesigned mitigation pit. (C) 2013 Optical Society of America