Abstract

History of high power/energy optics is inextricably as sociated with the creation of a single-mode CO2 laser (P = 1.2 kW), operating in the master oscillator-power amplifier regime and employing the principle of a quasi-optical transmission line, at the Laboratory of Oscillations of the P.N. Lebedev Physics Institute headed at that time by A.M. Prokhorov. Its creator was A.I. Barchukov, who worked with a team of young scientists on the problem of scaling of singlemode electric-discharge laser systems [1–5]. Due to the research conducted on such a laser system, we managed to study many physical phenomena occurring when high intensity radiation interacts with matter, including with the elements of the optical path of laser systems, which subsequently greatly facilitated creation of high-power lasers. Then, in the early 1970s, we paid attention to a phenomenon that was to limit undoubtedly the further growth of the power generated by lasers being developed [6]. More than twenty years of fundamental and applied research devoted to the study of this phenomenon and to the solution of problems associated with it allow a conclusion that its essence consists in the following. An optical surface of a highly reflecting power/energy optics element (POE) or any element of an optical path does not fully reflect radiation falling on it. A small portion of energy (fractions of a percent, depending on the wavelength) is absorbed by this reflecting element and turns into heat.