Photothermal microscopy: an effective diagnostic tool for laser irradiation effects on fused silica and KDP

In this paper, an automated microscopic instrument based on this technique is developed and used for the measurement and analysis of weak absorption properties of optical materials. This system shows a measuring sensitivity of absorbance down to 10 ppb, and provides user-friendly operation of the whole absorption measurement process. Compared with a typical bench-top system, the automated system requires little special skills from the operators and is therefore more reliable and reproducible. By using this system, a study of laser irradiation effects on optical materials induced by high power laser pulses is performed. The in-situ monitoring of a laser induced damage process at 355 nm in fused silica is realized, which indicates that the photothermal system is a useful tool for analysis of laser-material-interaction dynamics. Other specific applications of this system include measuring weak absorption, detecting local absorption defects. Experimental results show that both surface/sub-surface absorption defects on fused silica and bulk absorption defects on KDP are clearly determined.

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