Thermal Lensing in Infrared Laser Window Materials

Abstract
A theoretical investigation of thermal lensing in infrared windows is presented which treats aberration effects to all orders in the small angle‐of‐deviation approximation. The model is applied to a truncated Gaussian infrared laser beam incident on a semitransparent isotropic disk‐shaped window. It is shown that window aberrations limit the time a diffraction‐limited focus can be held in the far field. This diffraction‐limited time td is computed for some candidate window materials and their relative merits are discussed.

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