An empirical investigation of the laser survivability curve: V

Abstract

In this paper, we report on a continuing multi-year empirical investigation into the nature of the laser survivability curve. The laser survivability curve is the onset threshold as a function of shot number. This empirical investigation is motivated by the desire to design a universal procedure for the measurement of the so-called S on 1 damage threshold. In this year’s paper we investigate the usefulness of scaling the fluence with shot number. First the scaling process is defined and applied to a result from our experimental archives. The probability of damage curve for a single shot test is extrapolated to 104 shots. The scaled result is shown to be very close the observed results providing a basis for extrapolation to very large values of n.