Physics – Optics
Scientific paper
2010-05-25
Physics
Optics
Scientific paper
We present a method for the measurement of small optical absorption coefficients. The method exploits the deformation of cavity Airy peaks that occur if the cavity contains an absorbing material with a non-zero thermo-refractive coefficient dn/dT or a non-zero expansion coefficient ath . Light absorption leads to a local temperature change and to an intensity-dependent phase shift, i.e. to a photo-thermal self-phase modulation. The absorption coefficient is derived from a comparison of time-resolved measurements with a numerical time-domain simulation applying a Markov-chain Monte-Carlo (MCMC) algorithm. We apply our method to the absorption coefficient of lithium niobate (LN) doped with 7mol% magnesium oxide (MgO) and derive a value of alphaLN = (5.9 +/- 0.9) *10^-4/cm . Our method should also apply to materials with much lower absorption coefficients. Based on our modelling we estimate that with cavity finesse values of the order 10^4, absorption coefficients of as low as 10^-8 /cm can be measured.
Lastzka Nico
Schnabel Roman
Steinlechner Jessica
Steinlechner Sebastian
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