Abstract

Components of high performance optical devices may be exposed to high energy radiation environments during their lifetime. The effect of these adverse environments depends upon a large number of parameters associated with the radiation (nature, energy, dose, dose rate, etc.) or the system (temperature, optical performance requirements, optical wavelength, optical power, path length, etc.), as well as the intrinsic susceptibility of the optical component itself to degradation. Two years ago there was a special session on Radiation Effects in Optical Materials at the Southwest Conference on Optics, [1] and the reader is referred to this volume for an in-depth description of materials effects.

© 1987 Optical Society of America