Ultrafast laser damage: the effect of an adhesion layer on damage thresholds

Sub-picsosecond laser-induced damage (LID) is intrinsically linked to material properties. Due to the weak adhesion of gold on dielectric substrates, LID is visible as delamination at very low fluence thresholds. Adding a chromium adhesion layer between the gold and the substrate increases damage thresholds for single laser shots by a factor of three. Surprisingly, for multishot experiments, little or no increase in the optical damage threshold is observed.