Laser Components now offer a range of laser protection windows, for a variety of materials and AR coatings for the wavelength required. The company also provide an additional AR coating in the visible region for the pilot beam, which is often in the 635-650nm band, or 532nm wavelength.
Laser welding and cutting machines create a lot of molten back scattered particles. Protection windows, or sacrificial plates, are positioned close to the working area, designed to protect adjacent high quality, and often more expensive, laser optics. Protection windows tend to be less expensive and easy to replace and have lower surface qualities than the primary focussing optic. Two popular materials used are BK7 for Nd:YAG lasers and ZnSe for CO2 lasers, with anti-reflection (AR) coatings to maintain transmission performance.