This study examined the growth of the laser-damage performance in opticalcomponents under the fourth harmonic of Nd:glass laser irradiation (263-nm).The damage-growth threshold of the optical component was relatively low under 263-nm laser irradiation compared to 351-nm irradiation, owing to the higherenergy level of 4ω photons, and depended on the material characteristics. Thepreliminary growth of laser damage in fused silica and CaF2 under 263-nm laserirradiation is reported in this article. The damage growth thresholds of these twomaterials were obtained by continuously irradiating the optical components usinga 263-nm laser with a pulse width of τ = 5 ns. The damage growth threshold offused silica is lower than that of CaF2 because of differences between the mate-rials. The damage characteristics, including the damage morphology and bulkdamage, were analyzed.