Abstract

Alkaline-earth fluorides are widely used in optical transmission components in the deep UV as well as for optical coatings because of their wide-band-gap, low refractive indices and hardness. One essential drawback of these materials is the formation of defects (color centers e. g.) during intense irradiation. This limits the lifetime of such optical elements for high power propagation in the UV and reduces the transmission of ultrashort laserpulses nonlinearly. Details of this process, in particular the dynamics during the early stages (formation of self-trappped excitons STE [1]) are therefor of interest.

© 1998 IEEE