Direct Measurement Of The Nonlinear Refractive Index Of Sf 6 Around 10 µm

Y. Beaudoin; I. Golub; S. L. Chin

doi:10.1117/12.967210

1 January 1987 Direct Measurement Of The Nonlinear Refractive Index Of Sf 6 Around 10 µm

Y. Beaudoin, I. Golub, S. L. Chin

Proceedings Volume 0813, Optics and the Information Age; (1987) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.967210
Event: 14th Congress of the International Commission for Optics, 1987, Quebec, Canada

Abstract

For many applications related to high power laser propagation such as laser isotope separation or parametric wave mixing, knowledge of the refractive index n in the infrared (IR) is very important to obtain maximum efficiency in these processes. We present here a simple technique to measure directly the nonlinear refractive index n2 of a molecular gas in the IR. We use CO2 laser propagation in SF6 as an example. SPE, is a well-studied molecule exhibiting nonlinear properties such as self-focusing (S.F.), self-defocusing (S.D.) and four-wave mixing of a CO2 laser radiation around 10.6 pm. However, n2 and the related nonlinear susceptibility x(3) of SF6 were derived from indirect experiments by measuring the reflectivity of phase-conjugated signall or from the self-focused beam diameter dependence on laser intensity2. In our case the technique allows to measure directly n2 and to tell the occurence of S.D. or S.F. without having to take into account intensity dependent absorption.

Citation Download Citation

Y. Beaudoin, I. Golub, and S. L. Chin "Direct Measurement Of The Nonlinear Refractive Index Of Sf 6 Around 10 µm", Proc. SPIE 0813, Optics and the Information Age, (1 January 1987); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.967210

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