Transient thermal blooming of long laser pulses.
Existing theory for stationary laser pulse propagation in absorbing media for times greater than the acoustic transit time is compared with experiments. Collimated and focused Gaussian beams as well as unstable resonator type beams are investigated. Good agreement is reached for all experimental conditions for collimated beams, and at higher energy deposition significant deviations are observed for focused beams.
R G
RG
Buser
R S
RS
Rohde