I-scan thermal lens experiment in the pulse regime for measuring two-photon absorption coefficient

Abstract

We present a new pump-probe mode-mismatched thermal lens method for pulse excitation aimed to the measurement of nonlinear absorption coefficient in optical materials. We develop a theoretical model based on the Fresnel diffraction approximation and their predictions are verified experimentally with samples of Rhodamine 6G and Rhodamine B in ethanol solution. The principal advantage of this technique is that it does not require any mechanical movement during measurement. Below we perform the new type of thermal lens experiment in the pulse regime for the measurement of nonlinear absorption coefficient in transparent samples and we demonstrate the validity of theoretical predictions using an alternative method to the classical thermal lens technique.