Fluoride Optic Laser-Damage Simulator

Fluoride nanomaterials such as CaF₂ and MgF₂ are prized for deep-UV optics precisely because of their wide bandgap and broad UV-to-IR transparency — but sustained excimer-laser irradiation still damages them, one pulse at a time. This simulator fires a virtual pulse train of 157/193/248 nm excimer light at a crystal window and grows F-centers (color-center point defects) inside it pulse by pulse, following a saturable generation-minus-thermal-annealing model. Watch the crystal darken as color-center density rises, transmission drops on the live Beer–Lambert readout, and — if you push fluence or repetition rate too far — the optic crosses its damage threshold and fails catastrophically, exactly as a real ArF or F₂ lithography lens element would.