Abstract Fused silica has been widely used as optical components in radiation environment. Some optical components used in these applications are frequently exposed to X-rays and other ionizing radiation, leading to the increase of optical absorption and decrease of laser-induced damage threshold, thus undermining their optical properties and operational lifetime. As on-line heating is difficult to achieve for some optical components to eliminate radiation induced defects; on the other hand off-line heating will affect the normal operation of these systems,therefore, we proposed to employ laser conditioning to eliminate radiation induced defects. The advantages of the proposed technique are demonstrated via optical absorption measurement and laser-induced damage threshold test. The experimental results show that laser conditioning can effectively reduce spectral absorption in the range from 200 nm to 320 nm in the X-rays irradiated areas and recover laser-induced damage threshold, regardless of X-rays irradiation time, 1 h or 5 h. It appears that the laser conditioning technology is potentially a useful tool to eliminate X-rays induced defects, and suited for on-line treatment in high-power laser systems.

中文翻译：

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激光调理消除熔融石英中 X 射线辐照缺陷

摘要 熔融石英已被广泛用作辐射环境中的光学元件。这些应用中使用的一些光学元件经常暴露于 X 射线和其他电离辐射，导致光吸收增加和激光诱导损伤阈值降低，从而破坏其光学性能和使用寿命。由于某些光学元件难以实现在线加热以消除辐射引起的缺陷；另一方面离线加热会影响这些系统的正常运行，因此，我们建议采用激光调节来消除辐射引起的缺陷。通过光吸收测量和激光诱导损伤阈值测试证明了所提出技术的优点。实验结果表明，无论X射线照射时间为1 h还是5 h，激光调理都能有效降低X射线照射区域200 nm~320 nm范围内的光谱吸收，恢复激光诱导损伤阈值。看来激光调节技术是消除 X 射线引起的缺陷的潜在有用工具，适用于高功率激光系统中的在线处理。