Ablation mechanism and protection of aluminum alloy under high power laser irradiation: A review

Aluminum alloy is used as the support of final optical assembly because of its excellent mechanical properties, which constitutes the “skeleton” of high-power laser system. Stray light reflected by weak optical elements in high power laser system will fall on the inner wall frame of aluminum alloy, which will cause damage and produce impurity particles, polluting the entire optical system. However, the research on the damage mechanism and protection technology of aluminum alloy under the action of high-power laser system is still in the initial stage. This paper introduces the interaction mechanism between laser and materials, analyzes the laser damage mechanism of aluminum alloy from the perspective of plasma nano metal particle ablation, reviews the progress of laser-induced damage protection of aluminum alloy, and prospects the future research direction of laser absorption and damage protection technology of aluminum alloy under the action of high-energy laser.