ABSTRACT
The technique of pulsed indirect photoacoustic spectroscopy is applied to the examination of free liquid surfaces, and the prospects are assessed for remote detection and identification of chemical species in a field environment. A CO(2) laser (tunable within the 9-11-microm region) provides pulsed excitation for a variety of sample types; the resulting photoacoustic pulses are detected at ranges of the order of a few centimeters. The phenomenon is investigated as a function of parameters such as temperature, sample depth, laser-pulse energy, pulse length, and beam diameter. The results are in good agreement with a theoretical model that assumes the mechanism to be expansion of air resulting from heat conduction from the laser-heated surface of the sample under investigation. Signal and noise processing issues are discussed briefly, and the possible extension of the technique to ranges of the order of 10 m is assessed.
ABSTRACT
We experimentally and theoretically studied the phenomenon of thermal emission from nonvolatile liquid surface coatings following heating with a pulsed CO(2) laser. The effects of thermal diffusion across the liquid-air and liquid-substrate interfaces as well as the full absorption spectrum of the liquid are addressed theoretically. The differential temporal and intensity characteristics of the thermal emission signal from the heated surface coating, resulting from the differential heat deposition profile for on- and off-resonance excitation, are shown to be useful for the purposes of identifying different surface contaminants. The application of this technique to standoff thermal imaging of contaminated surfaces is discussed.
ABSTRACT
A representative prototype of a high-energy, long-pulse, and narrow-bandwidth pulsed CO(2) laser suitable for a spaceborne Doppler wind lidar application has been developed. We obtained 10 J of output energy at greater than 8% efficiency in long, narrow-bandwidth, single-longitudinal, and transverse-mode pulses. We used a positive branch unstable resonator with a fourth-order super-Gaussian mirror as the output coupler. Experiments were carried out to assess the effect of intracavity hard apertures of different diameters that induce diffractive perturbation of the theoretical field and reduce the transverse-mode selectivity of the cavity. An upper limit to the choice of the mirror soft radius has been found, which allows optimization of the trade-off between laser efficiency and beam quality. We determined experimentally that a value of 0.75-0.8 for the ratio between the exp(-1) diameter of the beam intensity and the laser clear aperture gave a single-transverse-mode operation without significant loss of efficiency.
ABSTRACT
A detailed comparison of experimental and theoretical SNR in an IR laser heterodyne system has been made with three different signal analyzers. Good agreement, considerably better than a factor of 1.5, is reported. Accurate allowance was made for transmission in the receiver optics, the effective quantum efficiency of the detector due to shot noise domination by the local oscillator, and for coherent speckle effects across the collection aperture. The evaluation of SNR with a surface acoustic wave spectrum analyzer and digital integrator is described in some detail. As an illustration an absolute measurement of backscattering strength in the atmosphere from an airborne equipment at altitudes up to 13.1 km is provided.
