Laser-induced defect reactions governing damage performance in KDP and DKDP crystals

The interaction of damage initiating defect precursors in KDP and DKDP crystals with laser pulses is investigated as a function of laser parameters to obtain experimental results that contain information about the type and nature of the defects. Specifically, the focus is to understand a) the interaction of the precursors with sub-damage laser pulses leading to improvement to the damage performance (laser conditioning) and b) the synergetic effects during multi-wavelength irradiation. Our results expose complex behaviors of the defect precursors associated with damage initiation and conditioning at different wavelengths that provide a major step towards revealing the underlying physics.