Femtosecond vs. Nanosecond Laser Damage Thresholds

Matthew S. Dabney spent the first 13 years of his career mastering details of optics at Hyperfine, Inc. He fabricated and qualified most of the optics in the Hubble Space Telescope as well as other space flight optics. Matthew brought his optics and engineering experience with him to the National Renewable Energy Labs (NREL) where he was an optical engineer for 14 years working on laser processing of materials for photovoltaics. In 2017, Matthew took up a position at Cornell University as a facility manager in charge of Confocal laser microscopy and XPS. Matthew started work as a Principal Engineer and R&D manager at Edmund Optics in 2019 where he leads research in laser interactions with materials. Matthew has published over 30 scientific papers on topics ranging from pulsed laser deposition of novel transparent conducting oxides, laser nucleation and growth of Silicon, the safe use of class 4 lasers in industrial settings, to Development of a robust LIDT testbed.

Dr. Mathias Mende is a Senior Optical Coating Designer in Edmund Optics’ Germany office. He spent the last three years focusing on thin film design at Edmund Optics after 10 years of working at Laseroptik GmbH. Mathias earned a PhD degree in physics from the Leibniz University Hannover. He has over 15 years of experience in thin-film design and process development for ion-beam sputtered coatings applied for high-power laser optics or complex filters.