Influence of optical absorption on the laser damage threshold of glasses

It was shown experimentally that the bulk damage threshold of K8 optical glasses containing color centers is proportional to $\alpha^{-0,5}$ ($\alpha$ is the absorption coefficient). This result may be attributed to nonlinearity of $\alpha$. A consequence of this assumption is the dependence $W_n\sim\sqrt{\tau_p}$ ($W_n$ is the damage threshold energy density and $\tau_p$ is the radiation pulse duration).