Laser Damage Threshold: A Critical and Often Misunderstood Specification

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.