Abstract

Energy transfer through absorbing media with pulses short compared to the acoustic transit time has been investigated experimentally and theoretically for collimated beams in a homogeneous wind field. Two experimental approaches were used: a low intensity cw CO₂ laser probe beam technique giving a continuous record of the lensing of the medium following the transmission of a coaxial high power TEA laser pulse and a direct determination of high power pulse train blooming using a thermofax covered drum. The experimental results support the predictions of a geometric optics perturbation solution as well as those of existing propagation codes. An interesting case, namely, enhancement resulting in a 20–30% increase of the original nonbloomed peak intensity is observed when the pulse separation time is approximately 1–2 times the wind flow time across the beam.

© 1975 Optical Society of America

Transient Thermal Blooming of Long Laser Pulses

Rudolf G. Buser and Robert S. Rohde
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