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With increased power of spectral beam combination, surface heat distortion of multilayer dielectric gratings (MDGs) could occur. In this study, the damage morphology of MDGs was initially analyzed under a continuous-wave laser irradiation. Subsequently, the surface distortion and temperature rise of different MDGs were tested experimentally. The experimental results showed that the initial damage of MDGs was caused by the thermal stress. Further, the thermal stress of the multilayer dielectric films on the MDG surface was analyzed theoretically. The calculated results were in good agreement with the experimental results. The conclusions indicated that with the increase of the MDG surface temperature, the stress in the HfO2 layers initially reached the stress damage threshold of the dielectric films and, therefore, the damage occurred.

In a spectral beam combination system, temperature increase of the multilayer dielectric grating (MDG) worsens the far-field beam quality of the output laser. To accurately monitor the surface temperature of the MDG, this study deposits V O 2 phase-change film on the lowest layer of multilayer dielectric films in the MDG and tests the transmittance with a probe laser. Based on this measurement, the surface temperature of the MDG can be calculated. Additionally, the study analyzes the influence of V O 2 film on the surface electric field and the − 1 diffraction efficiency of the MDG and presents a specific example of using V O 2 film to test high reflector temperature. The study concludes that V O 2 film is a feasible method of measuring temperature and better than an infrared thermal imager.

In previous research, the thermal distortion and far-field beam quality of a spectral beam combining grating were analyzed by theory and experiment under the irradiation of a high-power continuous-wave laser. It was concluded that the thermal expansion of the substrate was the main cause of the grating distortion and decrease in the beam quality. However, there was no further study to determine a method to decrease the heat deposition on the grating surface and far-field beam quality factor, M2. In this paper, we theoretically simulate the influence of the substrate thickness on the temperature field distribution and far-field beam quality of a multilayer dielectric grating. An experimental setup is proposed to verify the theoretical calculations. The experimental results are in good agreement with the calculations. The conclusions indicate that the temperature rise of the grating and M2 are effectively reduced by increasing the thickness of the substrate.