Abstract
A passive optical limiter is a device that has high linear transmittance for low input fluences and low transmittance for high input fluences. We have previously demonstrated the ability of materials possessing nonlinear absorption, refraction, or scattering to perform as passive optical limiters.1-3 A disadvantage of this approach to optical limiting is that the nonlinear materials often suffer optical damage at fluences about an order of magnitude larger than the limiting threshold for nanosecond pulses. We define the limiting threshold as the incident energy at which the transmittance falls to 50% of the linear transmittance. Practical limiting devices require a damage threshold several orders of magnitude larger. The performance of limiters can be parameterized in terms of the "dynamic range" (DR), where we define DR = damage energy/limiting threshold. Here we demonstrate a method of dramatically increasing the dynamic range of passive optical limiters by cascading two or more limiting materials in a single limiting device,4 As the schematic of the limiter in Fig. 1 shows, the device has two elements. We place one (the "Primary limiter") at or near focus, while the other (the "Secondary limiter") is placed at a region of lower intensity upstream from the first. The concept behind this design is that the Primary limiter provides a low limiting threshold, while the purpose of the Secondary limiter is to protect the Primary limiter from optical damage.
© 1993 Optical Society of America
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