Design and Preparation of Laser Film on Sapphire Substrate
Dang Shao-kun
1
, XU Jun-qi
1
, SU Jun-hong
1
, Guo Fang
1
, Cheng Yao-jin
2
(Thin Film Technology and Optical Test Open Key Laboratory of Shaanxi Province,
Xi’an Technological University, Xi’an 710032, China; 2.National Defence Key Laboratory of
Science and Technology on Low Light Level Night Vision, Xi’an 710032, China)
ABSTRACT
Sapphire crystal as a kind of good material has a good transmittance in the ultraviolet, visible, infrared, which is widely
used in the high-intensity laser system as the window material. Anti-reflection thin films on sapphire substrate are
commonly used in high-energy laser system in the middle infrared bands 3~5μm and these thin films are very easily
damaged for high energy laser system. In this paper, we adopt thermal evaporation technique on the sapphire substrate is
prepared by design of single layer and multilayer anti-reflection coatings system so that the infrared transmittance satisfy
the design requirements. The results of transmittance and laser damage performance tests show that the anti-reflection
coating of 3~5μm transmittance is more than 97% on average, Laser-induced damage threshold (LIDT) is more than
5J/cm
2
(1064nm), which means that this method could obtain a high-quality laser film.
Keywords:
Laser Film, Sapphire, Evaporation Technology
1. Introduction
The middle infrared bands 3~5μm is a window of the commonly used in the detection process, it is often suffer from
laser blinding weapons, therefore many researchers pay more attention to the development of the IR antireflective thin
film which has a protective effect against the laser on the lens of the infrared detector
[1]
. Commonly used in the infrared
wavelengths of conventional materials such as Si, Ge, Sapphire, however conventional materials Si in transparent areas
cut-off under1.1μm and Ge below 1.8μm cut off so that the two kinds of base material can’t protect 1.064μm laser
irradiation, and the sapphire has wide band includes ultraviolet, visible light infrared has good transmittance, Therefore
the sapphire often used as a high energy laser window materials. But this kind of thin film materials used in high energy
laser are very easily damaged and restrictions of various factors so that transmission can't meet use requirements. Thus
the surface of the sapphire coated with single layer or multi-layer not only can improve transmittance and thin-film
materials with certain laser damage resistance as a efficient method to make up for inadequate performance of sapphire
[2-5]
. In this paper, we use the electron beam evaporation method on sapphire substrate preparation of anti-reflection thin
films, and the properties of laser damage resistance of the thin films are tested.
2. Experimental procedure
2.1 Optical constants of the substrate
Sapphire crystal as a kind of excellent material has good transmittance in the ultraviolet, visible light, infrared
wavelengths, which is often used as the window material of the high intensity laser. The sapphire substrate refractive
index was 1.71 and it was measured the actual transmittance of 85.6% by infrared spectrophotometer in 3 ~ 5μm, as
shown in Figure 1. However sapphire used high-energy laser due to limited by various factors so that its own
transmittance can not meet the use requirements, therefore the simplest method is in the sapphire substrate coated with
anti-laser damage transmittance thin films to improve transmittance.
2.2 The choose of thin film materials
The infrared laser thin film materials are often some hard membrane materials, which can choose the material is quite
limited, the general thin film materials are required to have optical properties and good mechanical properties, and
Proc. of SPIE Vol. 9281 92811S-1