Improving laser damage threshold measurements: an explosive analogy

摘要

Laser damage measurements share similarities with testing of explosives, namely the sample or sample site is damaged or modified during the measurement and cannot be retested. An extensive literature exists for techniques of measurement of the "all fire" and "no fire" levels for explosives. These levels hold direct analogy to the "all damage" or 100% probability of damage or the "all safe" or 0% probability of damage. The Maximum Likelihood Estimate method, which is the foundation of this technique, is introduced. These methods are applied to an archetypal damage probability model and the results shown to be accurate and unbiased.