Overview of raster scanning for ICF-class laser optics

Recent work has shown that the damage resistance of both ICF-class (1600 cm 2 ) DKDP tripler crystals and SiO 2 components (lenses, gratings and debris shields) benefits from laser raster scanning using pulsed lasers in the 350 nm range. For laser raster scanning to be a viable optical improvement tool for these large optics, damage improvement must be optimized while maintaining scan times of less than 8 hours/optic. In this paper we examine raster scanning with small beams from tabletop laser systems. We show that 120 Watts of average power is required for a tabletop scanning system at one optic/day. Next, we develop equations for total scan time for square and round top heat beams and round and rectangular Gaussian beams. We also consider the effect of packing geometry (square vs. hexagonal), examine the deviations from uniform coverage with each scan geometry and show that hexagonal packing yields lower scan times but is less efficient in coverage than square geometry. We also show that multiple passes at low packing densities are temporally equivalent to a single pass with higher packing density, and discuss the advantages of each method. In addition, we show that the differences between hexagonal and square scan geometries are negated when pointing errors and fluence fluctuations from the laser are considered.