Stable High Power deep-UV Enhancement Cavity in Ultra High Vacuum with Fluoride Coatings

Abstract

We demonstrate the superior performance of fluoride coated versus oxide coated mirrors in long term vacuum operation of a high power deep-ultraviolet enhancement cavity. In high vacuum (10 −8 mbar), the fluoride optics can maintain up to a record-high 10 W of stable intracavity power on one hour time scales, whereas for the oxide optics, we observe rapid degradation at lower intracavity powers with a rate that increases with power. After observing degradation in high vacuum, we can recover the fluoride and oxide optics with oxygen; however, this recovery process becomes ineffective after several applications. For fluoride coatings, we see that initial UV conditioning in an oxygen environment helps to improve the performances of the optics. In oxygenrich environments from ∼10 −4 mbar to 1 mbar, the fluoride optics can stably maintain up to 20 W of intracavity power on several-hour time scales whereas for the oxide optics there is immediate degradation with a rate that increases with decreasing oxygen pressure.