Experimental Determination of Single and Multiple Pulse Propagation
Abstract
In this paper thermal blooming of focused single and multiple pulse lasers is considered. Experimental procedures are described to characterize the reduction in far field irradiance observed for pulses whose duration is comparable to and shorter than tau sub H, an acoustic transit time across a focal radius. Experimental measurements of short pulse blooming (t < tau sub H) are compared with a scalar wave theoretical computer model embodying the medium hydrodynamics. Agreement with the short pulse theory is generally good. An experiment was designed to test the quantitative predictive capability of a steady state multiple pulse computer code. Blooming of a multiple pulse beam was measured as a function of absorbed energy and spatial overlap of successive pulses. With no adjustable parameters agreement between the actual measurements and those predicted by theory is very good.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Feb 03, 1978
- Accession Number
- ADA055570
Entities
People
- Harry R. Zwicker
- Herbert Kleiman
- Richard W. O'neil
Organizations
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology