Ion Beam Sputtered Coatings for Large Aperture, High-Energy Laser Optics

Large diameter optics have numerous challenges, including fabrication, surface figure, weight, transport, mounting, materials choice, and thermal concerns. High Energy Laser applications bring additional challenging parameters to the mix, such as surface micro-roughness, laser damage threshold, coating adhesion, and coating thermal conductivity. The developments in this proposal will result in a controlled, end-to-end process for fabrication and coating of optics for the Directed Eenergy community, and that process will be demonstrated using system-critical large and small diameter optics.