Radiation impact on the characteristics of optical glasses test results on a selected set of materials

It is well known within the Space optics community that radiation may significantly affect transmittance of glasses. To overcome this drawback, glass manufacturers have developed Cerium doped counterparts of classical glasses. This doped glasses display much less transmittance sensitivity to radiation. Still, the impact of radiation on refractive index is less known and may affect indifferently classical or Cerium doped glasses. ESTEC has initialised an R&D program with the aim of establishing a comprehensive data base gathering radiation sensitivity data, called Dose coefficients, for all the glass optical parameters (transmittance / refractive index / compaction……). The first part of this study, to define the methodology for such a data base, is run by ASTRIUM SAS in co-operation with SCK CEN. This covers theoretical studies associated to testing of a selected set of classical and "radiation hardened" glasses. It is proposed here to present first the theoretical backgrounds of this study and then to give results which have been obtained so far.