Impact of thermal boundary resistance on laser inclusion damage

The present work rigorously analyzes the effect of thermal boundary resistance (TBR) on laser heating of an inclusion embedded in a nonabsorbing optical medium. The TBR impedes the flow of heat across the inclusion/medium interface, enhances the inclusion heating rate, and reduces the laser damage threshold. The results indicate that in some cases the damage threshold is only half of that predicted when the boundary resistance is neglected. Both an exact solution and approximate scaling relations are developed that incorporate the TBR. The scaling relations show that when the TBR is considered, the damage threshold can have a stronger dependence on the pulse width than previously predicted.