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A low-temperature chemical cleaning approach has been developed to improve the performance of multilayer dielectric pulse-compressor gratings for use in the OMEGA EP laser system. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy results guided the selection of targeted cleaning steps to strip specific families of manufacturing residues without damaging the grating's fragile 3D profile. Grating coupons that were cleaned using the optimized method consistently met OMEGA EP requirements on diffraction efficiency and 1054 nm laser-damage resistance at 10 ps. The disappearance of laser-conditioning effects for the highest-damage-threshold samples suggests a transition from a contamination-driven laser-damage mechanism to defect-driven damage for well-cleaned components.

We characterize “blisters”, defects observed in multilayer dielectric (MLD) coatings after exposure to acid cleaning procedures. Nanoindentation is used to make site-specific indentations across blisters to measure the mechanical response, especially their compliance under different conditions of loading. Two regions of statistically different mechanical response are identified within a blister defect and compared to the undisturbed regions of the MLD coating. The indentation response of blisters can vary across samples, and we suggest reasons for this variation.

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