Saturable absorption and self-focusing effects in molecular iodine vapour

The author has measured the transmission of the molecular iodine vapour as a function of the intensity of the incident laser beam, at the wavelength of 0.6943 mu m, for three different vapour temperatures. The author found that the saturable absorption and the self-focusing of the laser beam are significant. From the data the value of the non-linear susceptibility of the molecular iodine is estimated.