Thermal diffusivity measurement using the mode-mismatched photothermal lens method

We report on a mode-mismatched pump-probe photothermal lens experiment aimed at determination of the thermal diffusivity coefficient of optical samples. In the scheme, the probe beam is collimated and the pump beam is focused. Using a Fresnel diffraction approximation, we show that under these conditions the time dependence of the signal does not depend on the Rayleigh parameters and waist positions of the light beams. This fact allows a more simple and reliable calibration of the experiment in comparison to other schemes. We conduct studies on liquid and solid samples that confirm the predictions of the model. Using the proposed method, we measure the thermal diffusivity coefficient of distilled water, ethanol, methanol, chloroform, nitrobenzene, ethylene glycol, and a solid piece of acrylic plastic. The results are in good agreement with previous measurements.