N. G. C. Astrath

Time-resolved thermal mirror method: A theoretical study

A general and complete theoretical model of the time-resolved thermal mirror method for the measurement of thermo-optical-mechanical properties of solid materials is developed. The laser-induced temperature profile in a sample and its thermoelastic surface displacement are derived. The center intensity of a probe beam at the detector plane is calculated using the Fresnel diffraction theory. Additionally, simplified models for high and low optical absorption samples are presented, and the suitability of the simplified models is also analyzed. The influence of experimental parameters on the sensitivity of the thermal mirror method is discussed for the optimization of the experimental apparatus. The presented model and the experimental technique can be used to quantitatively determine the physical properties of transparent and opaque solids.

Nanoscale surface displacement detection in high absorbing solids by time-resolved thermal mirror

Nanoscale surface displacement is used to determine thermo-optical–mechanical properties of high absorbing solids by means of the time-resolved thermal mirror method. The thermoelastic equation for the surface displacement and an expression for the probe beam intensity at the detector plane were derived. Experiments were performed in a high absorbing TiO2-doped low silica calcium aluminosilicate glass, and obtained the valuable values of the fluorescence quantum efficiency and thermal properties. The results indicate that this method is reliable for the characterization of semitransparent, high absorbing, and opaque materials.

Time-resolved thermal mirror technique with top-hat cw laser excitation

A theoretical model was developed for time-resolved thermal mirror spectroscopy under top-hat cw laser excitation that induced a nanoscale surface displacement of a low absorption sample. An additional phase shift to the electrical field of a TEM(00) probe beam reflected from the surface displacement was derived, and Fresnel diffraction theory was used to calculate the propagation of the probe beam. With the theory, optical and thermal properties of three glasses were measured, and found to be consistent with literature values. With a top-hat excitation, an experimental apparatus was developed for either a single thermal mirror or a single thermal lens measurement. Furthermore, the apparatus was used for concurrent measurements of thermal mirror and thermal lens. More physical properties could be measured using the concurrent measurements.

A composite photothermal technique for the measurement of thermal properties of solids

In this work, a composite photothermal technique combining open photoacoustic cell and photothermal deflection methods for thermal characterization of opaque solids was developed. An excitation laser was employed to concurrently generate both photoacoustic and mirage effects. Thermal diffusivity and thermal effusivity of carbon-based samples were measured, and the values of thermal conductivities and specific heat were then deduced. The experimental results were found to be in good agreement with the literature values. The photothermal technique developed in this work permits a convenient and precise measurement of thermal properties of solids.

Note: Determination of effective gas diffusion coefficients of stainless steel films with differently shaped holes using a Loschmidt diffusion cell

In this work, an in-house made Loschmidt diffusion cell is used to measure the effective O(2)-N(2) diffusion coefficients through four porous samples of different simple pore structures. One-dimensional through-plane mass diffusion theory is applied to process the experimental data. It is found that both bulk diffusion coefficient and the effective gas diffusion coefficients of the samples can then be precisely determined, and the measured bulk one is in good agreement with the literature value. Numerical computation of three-dimensional mass diffusion through the samples is performed to calculate the effective gas diffusion coefficients. The comparison between the measured and calculated coefficient values shows that if the gas diffusion through a sample is dominated by one-dimensional diffusion, which is determined by the pore structure of the sample, these two values are consistent, and the sample can be used as a standard sample to test a gas diffusion measurement system.

Time-resolved mirage method: A three-dimensional theory and experiments

A general time-resolved three-dimensional theory of the photothermal beam deflection for the measurement of thermal properties of opaque materials is presented. We derive the analytical solutions for the laser induced temperature profiles in the sample and in the fluid above the sample assuming flux discontinuity at the interface sample/fluid. We compare the analytical solutions with all numerical modeling using finite element analysis. The photothermal deflection signal is calculated and an expression is provided for the transverse photothermal signal at a position-sensing detector. We use the model and the experimental method to investigate opaque plastic and metals, and the results for the thermal properties of the samples are in an excellent agreement in the literature values.

Thermal mirror and thermal lens techniques for semitransparent material characterization

The mode-mismatched thermal lens technique(TL) has been used to study many semitransparent materials. Its theoretical development considers weakly absorbing materials, which introduce restrictions on the samples optical thickness. However, the same equipment required by TL can be used to perform the thermal mirror (TM) experiment, which is useful to characterize materials with any optical absorption coefficient. In this work, we investigate a simple correction to be used in the TL model, making it possible to apply TL to a wide range of materials. Using TL and TM, we have determined the temperature coefficient of the optical path length (ds/dT) of a glass.

Material characterization with top-hat cw laser induced photothermal techniques: a short review

In this work, we present a short review of the recent development of the theoretical models for top-hat cw laser induced spectroscopies of thermal lens and thermal mirror. With the same probe and top-hat excitation lasers, an apparatus is set up to concurrently measure both thermal lens and thermal mirror effects of transparent samples. With the theoretical models and the experimental apparatus, not only optical and thermal properties are measured, but also the fluorescence quantum coefficient and the temperature coefficient of the optical path length of a fluorescent sample are simultaneously determined with no need of any reference sample. Mechanical properties also could be measured. Opaque samples are also studied using top-hat cw laser thermal mirror and top-hat photothermal deflection techniques to determine thermal properties (e.g., thermal conductivity and unit volume specific heat). This work shows that the combined top-hat cw laser photothermal techniques are useful for nondestructive evaluation of both transparent and opaque samples with a less expensive non-TEM00 Gaussian laser.

Determination of photochemical reaction rates using thermal lens spectrometry

Considering the time dependence of the absorption coefficient due to the photo-induced chemical reaction (PCR) and species diffusion, we calculate the temperature rise in the thermal lens (TL) effect and the TL signal at the detector plane. This theoretical approach removes the restriction that the PCR time constant is much greater than the characteristic TL time constant, which was assumed in a previously published model. Aqueous Cr(VI)-diphenylcarbazide solution is investigated, and quantitative experimental results for the thermal, optical and PCR properties of the sample are obtained. The relative difference between the parameters extracted from the same experimental data of the Cr(VI) solution using the previous and present models is found to be less than 5%, showing the present model can be used to study the PCR. Moreover the present model is more general than the previous one.