Photothermal response is a process in which the absorption of optical wave in a sample will induce a temperature rise, hence a modification of the refractive index of the sample. By detecting the change of the refractive index, the absorption property of the sample can be obtained. In this paper, an ellipsometric study of the photothermal response is presented. By analyzing the polarization change of the probe beam caused by the pump beam through photothermal response, we can obtain the surface absorption property of the samples we are interested in. Our results indicate that this technique is very promising for the analysis of weak absorption in thin film coatings.

Date Published: 9 July 2013
PDF: 7 pages
Proc. SPIE 8786, Pacific Rim Laser Damage 2013: Optical Materials for High Power Lasers, 87861A (9 July 2013); doi: 10.1117/12.2020445

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8786:
Pacific Rim Laser Damage 2013: Optical Materials for High Power Lasers
Jianda Shao; Takahisa Jitsuno; Wolfgang Rudolph, Editor(s)