The observation of thermally stimulated emission of low‐energy electrons (TSEE) from LiF single crystals that had been subjected to intense pulses of light from a Nd‐glass laser is reported. TSEE images of the surface are obtained with the aid of an array of Channeltron electron multipliers. Correlations between image features and laser surface damage have been discovered that suggest the utilization of the TSEE image technique for nondestructive testing of optical surfaces with respect to their laser surface‐damage threshold.