The 55th Annual Laser Damage Symposium, also known as Symposium on Optical Materials for High Power Lasers, will be held 17–20 September 2023 in Dublin-Livermore, CA. This meeting continues to be the leading forum for the exchange of information on the physics and technology of materials for high-power and high-energy lasers.

The series of conference proceedings has grown over the history of the conference to be a comprehensive source of information on optics for lasers and includes topics on laser-induced damage mechanisms, materials and thin film preparation, durability, properties modeling, testing, and component fabrication.

Since 2012, selected papers presented at this symposium are published in special sections of Optical Engineering (OE) – one of the major journals published by SPIE. For reference, the latest laser damage special section was published in the July 2022 issue of OE in the SPIE Digital Library.

This symposium will feature 10 core topic sessions with focuses on materials and measurements, thin films, fundamental mechanisms, and surfaces, mirrors and contamination, two mini-symposia on mixed materials/nano-laminates and ICF challenges and enabling technologies, and the Thin-Film Laser-Damage Competition. As usual, it will include both poster and oral presentations with no parallel sessions. Distinguished international researchers in the field of optics for high-power/high-energy lasers will present invited talks on the four core topical sections and the mini-symposia. Late submissions will be considered by the chairs — refer to the website for details.

We welcome your participation at this meeting to share the latest R&D and for the exchange of ideas with fellow colleagues. 

Detlev Ristau, Laser Zentrum Hannover e.V. (Germany)
Jonathan W. Arenberg, Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems (United States)
Xinbin Cheng, Tongji Univ. (China)
Enam A. Chowdhury, The Ohio State Univ. (United States)
Stavros G. Demos, Lab. for Laser Energetics (United States)
Eyal Feigenbaum, Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (United States)
Vitaly E. Gruzdev, The Univ. of New Mexico (United States)
Ella S. Field, Sandia National Lab. (United States)
Lars O. Jensen, TRUMPF SE + Co. KG  (Germany)
Takahisa Jitsuno, Osaka Univ. (Japan)
Marco Jupé, Laser Zentrum Hannover e.V. (Germany)
Laurent Lamaignère, CEA-Cesta (France)
Andrius Melninkaitis, Vilnius Univ. (Lithuania)
Shinji Motokoshi, Institute for Laser Technology (Japan)
Jean-Yves Natoli, Institut Fresnel (France)
Raluca A. Negres, Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (United States)
Jonathan Phillips, STFC Rutherford Appleton Lab. (United States)
Wolfgang Rudolph, The Univ. of New Mexico (United States)
Christopher J. Stolz, Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (United States)
Meiping Zhu, Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Science (China)

Stavros G. Demos, Lab. for Laser Energetics
Jean Steve, Univ. of Rochester

Arthur Guenther
Alexander Glass

Lab for Laser Energetics, Univ. of Rochester