Pulsed laser energy through fiberoptics for generation of ultrasound

Laser pulses are an effective, noncontacting technique for generating ultrasound in materials. However, for this approach to be practical, a versatile and safe method of delivering the laser pulses must be developed that eliminates exposed beams steered by mirrors and focused by lenses. Investigations by several researchers using fiberoptic delivery systems indicate that fiberoptics may be a viable method for the delivery of laser energy to generate acoustic energy. The main problem experienced with the fiberoptic delivery systems has been the inability to deliver high-energy, short-duration pulses via a fiber for thousands of pulses with no fiber damage and with constant energy output. This paper presents a technique for laser generation of sound using fiberoptics that continuously delivers sustained 20 ns pulses at a pulsing rate of 30 Hz from a doubled, Q-switched Nd:YAG laser operating at 532 nm with output energy from the fiber-optic system up to 26 mJ/pulse. The delivery system is used to excite ultrasound in a molten weld pool as part of a research effort to develop a noncontacting sensing system for real-time weld inspection.     

Characterization of laser hardened steels by laser induced ultrasonic surface waves

Ultrasonic surface waves are suitable for the characterization of surface hardened materials. This is shown on laser hardened turbine blades. The martensitic microstructure within the surface layer of surface hardened steels has a lower surface wave propagation velocity than the annealed or normalized substrate material. Because the propagation velocity depends on the ratio of layer thickness to wavelengthd/, its measurement allows the determination of the hardening depth. If the surface wave frequency is high enough, the surface wave propagates mainly within the hardened layer. A correlation of the surface wave velocity to the surface hardness has been found. Because the variation of the surface velocity in hardened steels is small, a high measurement accuracy is necessary to obtain the interesting hardening parameters with sufficient certainty. Therefore, a measuring arrangement has been developed where laser pulses, guided by optical fibers to the surface hardened structure, generate simultaneously surface wave pulses at two different positions. The two ultrasonic pulses are received by a piezoelectric transducer. The surface wave velocity is obtained from the time delay between these pulses which is determined by the cross-correlation method. To evaluate simultaneously surface waves with different penetration depths from the same signal acquisition, digital filtering has been used in connection with the cross-correlation.     

A Comparison of Q-Switched and Intensity Modulated Laser Pulses for Ultrasonic NDT

The purpose of this work was to investigate the potential of intensity modulated laser pulses for ultrasonic signal enhancement in NDT using a numerical model. Q-switched lasers produce broadband ultrasound which is susceptible to measurement noise. Intensity modulation can alleviate this problem by focussing the ultrasonic energy into a band centered around the modulation frequency. Ultrasonic waveforms and their DFTs are considered here in both aluminum and steel for a wide range of observation angles, for Q-switched laser pulses and for a 1 MHz intensity modulated laser pulse. These waveforms are useful to NDT researchers becauses they indicate what kinds of signals can be expected from unflawed materials. It is found that P waves are not as easily enhanced by modulation as are SV or Rayleigh surface waves. The time window which should be used to measure ultrasonic signals produced by intensity modulated laser pulses is determined.     

Measurement of the energy of wide laser beams in a turbulent atmosphere

An analysis of one possible method of determining the energy of a laser pulse that has traversed a test path is given. Based on a model of phase screens and the Monte-Carlo method of statistical tests, the conditions of propagation of laser pulses in air are modeled and geometric parameters of the measurement system which are optimal from the point of view of error minimization are determined. __________ Translated from Izmeritel’naya Tekhnika, No. 9, pp. 21–25, September, 2006.     

Nanomechanical properties of silicon surfaces nanostructured by excimer laser

Excimer laser irradiation at ambient temperature has been employed to produce nanostructured silicon surfaces. Nanoindentation was used to investigate the nanomechanical properties of the deformed surfaces as a function of laser parameters, such as the angle of incidence and number of laser pulses at a fixed laser fluence of 5 J cm⁻². A single-crystal silicon [311] surface was severely damaged by laser irradiation and became nanocrystalline with an enhanced porosity. The resulting laser-treated surface consisted of nanometer-sized particles. The pore size was controlled by adjusting the angle of incidence and the number of laser pulses, and varied from nanometers to microns. The extent of nanocrystallinity was large for the surfaces irradiated at a small angle of incidence and by a high number of pulses, as confirmed by x-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy. The angle of incidence had a stronger effect on the structure and nanomechanical properties than the number of laser pulses.     

聚偏氟乙烯在重复脉冲激光推进推力测量中的应用

为获取激光推力器在重复脉冲激光作用下产生推力的变化情况,在对聚偏氟乙烯(PolyVinylidene Flouride,PVDF)进行动态标定的基础上,建立了一套基于PVDF的重复脉冲推力测量装置.在单脉冲能量40 J,重复频率10 Hz的条件下进行了实验,并与半导体应变片的测量结果进行了比较分析,实验结果表明,该测量装置响应速度块、精度高,并有较强的噪音抑制能力,能充分获得脉冲推力在时间上的细微变化;同时发现,在双脉冲激光作用下,实验测量的冲量耦合系数有所减小,这一现象需要进一步的实验研究.     

Nanomechanical properties of silicon surfaces nanostructured by excimer laser

Abstract

Excimer laser irradiation at ambient temperature has been employed to produce nanostructured silicon surfaces. Nanoindentation was used to investigate the nanomechanical properties of the deformed surfaces as a function of laser parameters, such as the angle of incidence and number of laser pulses at a fixed laser fluence of 5 J cm^?2. A single-crystal silicon [311] surface was severely damaged by laser irradiation and became nanocrystalline with an enhanced porosity. The resulting laser-treated surface consisted of nanometer-sized particles. The pore size was controlled by adjusting the angle of incidence and the number of laser pulses, and varied from nanometers to microns. The extent of nanocrystallinity was large for the surfaces irradiated at a small angle of incidence and by a high number of pulses, as confirmed by x-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy. The angle of incidence had a stronger effect on the structure and nanomechanical properties than the number of laser pulses.     

飞秒激光与金膜作用的脉冲累积效应

采用1kHz飞秒激光（脉宽148fs,中心波长775nm）对石英衬底的金膜的烧蚀过程进行了研究．单脉冲与多脉冲的烧蚀阈值可以通过烧蚀点的直径平方与所用的激光能流的关系曲线获得．通过累积能流和烧蚀脉冲数的关系,可以得到金膜的脉冲累积因子．采用飞秒激光加工材料的一些特点可以合理解释单脉冲阈值附近获得的一些实验现象．     

正弦脉冲激光激发声波的热膨胀机制理论

阐述了激光与液体媒质作用通过热膨胀机制激发平面光声源的理论;针对激光脉冲为正弦波形的情况,求解出δ脉冲和长脉冲分别在约束界面和自由界面下产生声脉冲的解析解,通过仿真得到了声脉冲剖面,并对每种情况下产生的声波进行了对比分析;然后对液体中激光致声的光声转换效率进行了理论研究,对正弦波形δ脉冲和长脉冲激光分别在约束界面和自由界面下产生声脉冲的光声转换效率分别进行了理论分析和仿真,并讨论了液体媒质特性参数和激光参数对转换效率的影响,提出了提高转换效率的方案。     

Change of ultra-short laser pulse shape after scattering by a nanosphere in a dielectric matrix

The scattering of ultra-short laser pulses by a metallic nanosphere embedded in a dielectric matrix was studied theoretically in the frame of the dipole approximation. Calculations were performed for the corrected Gaussian shape of the incident laser pulse, which enabled us to consider both multi-cycle and sub-cycle pulses. Analysis of the influence of the scattering process on the shape of scattered pulse is made for various durations and carrier frequencies of the incident pulses.     

Utilizing asymmetric laser pulses for the generation of high-quality wakefield-accelerated electron beams

Employing temporally asymmetric laser pulses in the interaction with plasma has been recently proposed for controlling the pointing angle of an electron beam produced by a laser wakefield acceleration at low plasma density and moderate laser intensity. In this paper, results on the electron beam parameters for both symmetric and asymmetric laser pulses are presented. These results show that the highest-quality (well-pointed, well-collimated and bright) electron beams are generated in the current regime only using asymmetric laser pulses, which are longer than the plasma wave’s acceleration period, τ>λ_p/2c. The interaction between the laser pulse and the accelerated electron beam in the first plasma-wave period is extracted from the experimental results and observed in preliminary two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulation.     

Splitting of femtosecond laser pulses by using a Dammann grating and compensation gratings

When a Dammann grating is used to split a beam of femtosecond laser pulses into multiple equal-intensity beams, chromatic dispersion will occur in beams of each order of diffraction and with different scale of angular dispersion because the incident ultrashort pulse contains a broad range of spectral bandwidths. We propose a novel method in which the angular dispersion can be compensated by positioning an m-time-density grating to collimate the mth-order beam that has been split, producing an array of beams that are free of angular dispersion. The increased width of the compensated output pulses and the spectral walk-off effect are discussed. We have verified this approach theoretically and validated it through experiments. It should be highly interesting in practical applications of splitting femtosecond laser pulses for pulse-width measurement, pump-probe measurement, and micromachining at multiple points.     

The Laser Flash Method with Repeated Pulses—Optimal Experimental Design Analysis

The paper deals with analytical aspects of the laser flash method with repeated pulses, which is a photothermal experimental method for measurement of the thermal diffusivity of solids. It concentrates on the data reduction—an estimation of the thermal diffusivity from the experimental data. Special attention is given to the technique of correction of the width and shape of the heat pulses. Results of sensitivity and optimal experimental design analysis are discussed in detail. It focuses on questions of the influence of setting the experimental parameters, heat pulse period and the number of applied heat pulses, to the sensitivity of the method as well as the optimum time of duration of an experiment.     

Ultra-Short Pulsed Laser Manufacturing and Surface Processing of Microdevices

Ultra-short laser pulses possess many advantages for materials processing. Ultrafast laser has a significantly low thermal effect on the areas surrounding the focal point; therefore, it is a promising tool for micro- and submicro-sized precision processing. In addition, the nonlinear multiphoton absorption phenomenon of focused ultra-short pulses provides a promising method for the fabrication of various structures on transparent material, such as glass and transparent polymers. A laser direct writing process was applied in the fabrication of high-performance three-dimensional (3D) structured multilayer micro-supercapacitors (MSCs) on polymer substrates exhibiting a peak specific capacitance of 42.6 mF·cm⁻² at a current density of 0.1 mA·cm⁻². Furthermore, a flexible smart sensor array on a polymer substrate was fabricated for multi-flavor detection. Different surface treatments such as gold plating, reduced-graphene oxide (rGO) coating, and polyaniline (PANI) coating were accomplished for different measurement units. By applying principal component analysis (PCA), this sensing system showed a promising result for flavor detection. In addition, two-dimensional (2D) periodic metal nanostructures inside 3D glass microfluidic channels were developed by all-femtosecond-laser processing for real-time surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS). The processing mechanisms included laser ablation, laser reduction, and laser-induced surface nano-engineering. These works demonstrate the attractive potential of ultra-short pulsed laser for surface precision manufacturing.     

脉冲激光成像探测系统回波信号仿真

研究激光脉冲回波信号特性并建立其数学模型,是应用回波信号处理技术处理回波,生成目标三维激光仿真图像的基础.首先建立了激光器发射脉冲信号能量在时间和空间上的分布模型,然后依据成像目标的激光图像仿真模板,采用累加激光脚印各采样区发射脉冲信号与对应目标散射面单位冲激响应卷积值的方法,生成了探测器接收回波仿真信号,最后分析了影响回波信号仿真精度的因素.通过对激光脚印采样区个数的合理设置实现了激光脉冲回波波形的精确仿真.     

Pure antimony film as saturable absorber for Q-switched erbium-doped fiber laser

This paper reports on the use of Antimony (Sb) polymer film to generate stable Q-switching pulses in Erbium-doped fiber laser (EDFL) cavity. The SA is fabricated by coating a thin layer of Sb on a polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) film through physical vapour deposition (PVD) process. A 1 × 1 mm area of the film SA is cut and integrated into between two fiber ferrules inside the laser cavity for intra-cavity loss modulation. Self-starting and stable Q-switched pulses are obtained within a pump power range from 60 to 142 mW. Within this range, the repetition rate increases from 70.82 to 98.04 kHz, while pulse width decreases from 7.42 to 5.36 μs. The fundamental frequency signal-to-noise ratio of the pulse signal is 74 dB, which indicates the excellent stability of the pulses. The maximum output power and pulse energy are 8.45 mW and 86.19 nJ, respectively. Our demonstration shows that Sb film SA capable of generating stable pulses train operating at 1.55-micron region.     

用于微位移测量的迈克尔逊激光干涉仪综述

迈克尔逊干涉术测量微位移可实现纳米甚至更高的分辨力,并且具备能直接溯源至激光波长等诸多优点,是目前微位移测量的重要技术手段.以限制迈克尔逊干涉仪品质提高的非线性误差为主要切入点,对目前各种基于迈克尔逊干涉原理的激光干涉技术进行了分类介绍,主要讨论了微位移测量中实现高精度和高分辨率的干涉测量技术,最后展望了激光干涉法测量...     

Reduction of droplet of tantalum oxide using double slit in pulsed laser deposition

We developed a double slit method in order to reduce droplets that were a problem in pulsed laser deposition (PLD) of tantalum oxide. The tantalum oxide films were deposited using KrF excimer laser ablation of a Ta target in 5 mass% O₃ at a pressure of 10 Pa. Stoichiometric and dense films with few droplets were obtained at a pressure of 10 Pa. Without double slit, as the laser pulses increased, the number of droplets containing rich metal on the film gets increased and its size became larger, and the surface morphology of the target also became more and more rugged. It was found that the number of droplet could be controlled by changing the initial roughness of the target. The number of droplets with a diameter size of under 1 μm was decreased to 1/10 of their sizes. Droplets larger than 3 μm, which mostly affect the corrosion resistance and hardly increase even beyond the laser pulses of 100 000. It is evident from this study that the double slit is a very effective method for reducing the droplets, which are otherwise a problem often seen in film production by PLD.     

Ultrawide spectral range group-velocity dispersion measurementutilizing supercontinuum in an optical fiber pumped by a 1.5 μmcompact laser source

Group velocity dispersion (GVD) measurement is presented utilizing supercontinuum (SC) white pulses generated in an optical fiber by 15 μm compact laser sources. This provides 1) ultrawide continuous spectral measurement range >600 nm from a single optical source without the use of interpolation formulae and 2) stable far-end measurements by the simultaneous multi-wavelength nature of the SC pulses. A novel method that is independent of the detector bandwidth is proposed which measures λ-dependent phase shifts of one of the Fourier components of a short pulse train. Fiber GVD's of unusual dispersion characteristics were measured using SC pulses extended over the spectral range of 1150-1770 nm. It is shown that fiber lengths of up to 130 km can be measured with a group delay resolution of 0.01 ps/km     

An averaging mode time-to-amplitude converter with picosecondresolution

A time-to-amplitude converter (TAC) meant to be employed in pulsed time-of-flight (TOF) laser rangefinding and capable of operating at a very high pulse repetition rate (PRR) is described. It is based on a precise time interval between the emitted light pulses and measures the phase difference of the logic-level pulse trains formed by timing pulses derived from the transmitted and received light pulses. The fast part of the TAC is constructed by means of ECL 100 K circuits. Test results indicate that the TAC is well suited for fast, millimeter-level resolution applications, and a full width at half maximum (FWHM) resolution of 1.0 ps is achieved with a 5-MHz pulse repetition rate and 0.1-Hz-10-kHz measurement bandwidth