High-speed optical diagnostics of laser-interactions

The interaction of an 8 ns, 10 mJ and 1.06 µm infrared pulse of radiation from a Q-switched Nd-YAG laser with water near a solid boundary is studied using high speed photographic techniques. The laser-liquid interaction has been used to generate high frequency sound waves by the mechanism of dielectric breakdown of the liquid around the beam waist of the focused laser beam. This leads to the production of a short duration plasma which rapidly heats and vaporises the surrounding liquid giving rise to a vapour cavity and the formation of a cavitation bubble resulting in the emission of a spherical acoustic wave. The acoustic transient associated with the breakdown, in turn interacted with a liquid-polymer interface leading to the generation of acoustic waves at this boundary and the propagation of stress-waves in the solid. Diagnostics of the laser-interaction events are recorded using a Mach-Zehnder interferometer illuminated by a sub-nanosecond nitrogen laser-pumped dye laser and computer-controlled video-imaging and capture systems. Measurements of the transient pressure distributions from the digitally recorded interferograms are carried out using a process known as Abel inversion. Dynamic photoelastic studies of the stress-waves propagation in the solid are performed using a circular polariscope arrangement thus producing the photoelastic fringe patterns. Identification of the wave structures are greatly enhanced by also recording the events in schlieren and focused shadowgraphy as well as by the combination of the above techniques. The initial part of the project also involved the design and development of a nitrogen laser and tunable dye laser system. The short-duration and high peak power output pulse of the nitrogen laser is then used to pump the dye laser giving sufficiently high power output with good spectral linewidth to provide an ideal light source for high-speed photography of the laser interaction events.