In this paper the laser damage characteristics of nodule defects in 1 064 nm HfO2/SiO2 polarizers was discussed. To find the correlation between the seed diameter and the damage threshold of nodular defects in thin-film polarizers, monodisperse SiO2 microspheres were implanted on quartz substrates, and 1 064 nm HfO2/SiO2 polarizers were fabricated on quartz substrates by using electron beam evaporation deposition technique. The defect density of nodules that were created from SiO2 microspheres was purposely controlled to be around 20-40 mm2 and spin coating was taken to minimize clusters of SiO2 microspheres. To get the statistical value of ejection fluences of these engineered nodules, a raster scan damage test was used with a pulse width of 10 ns 1 064 nm laser. Laser damage test results showed that in thin-film polarizers the ejection fluences of nodules monotonically decrease with the increase of silica microsphere diameter.