Damage growth prediction study with multi-modal characterization

Optical and photoluminescence 3D imaging of small fused silica laser-induced damage sites allows us to understand the damage growth mechanisms. The laser damage growth process is driven by local absorption centers and its location and depth are the key factors. To quantitatively extract the factors from the 3D multi-modal image data set, various metrics are obtained by image analysis techniques and evaluated. We believe that our measurement and analysis approach can allow rapid identification of growth-prone damage sites, providing a pathway to fast, non-destructive predictions of laser-induced damage growth and enable selective damage site mitigation. This work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344. LLNL-ABS-863515