Looking at the proposed Go/No-Go laser damage standard in the context of Gaussian beams

The TF7 Task Force of the US Optics and Electro-Optics Standards Council is responsible for laser damage standards and has proposed and is developing a Type 1 standard – that is, a “Go/No-Go” test to determine whether an optic, when exposed to specified laser irradiation, will likely have more or fewer damage sites according to requirements based on what constitutes system failure as determined by the user. The mathematical framework for this proposed standard assumed top-hat laser beams that probe a portion of the total area of an optic. This paper reports on some practical aspects and measurement uncertainties of laser damage test protocols and looks at pros and cons of using Gaussian beams in the proposed “Go/No-Go” tests.