Effect of polarization on laser-induced surface-temperature rise

A model was developed to investigate the effect of polarization on laser-induced surface-temperature rise in absorbing materials. GaAs is taken as a substrate material in this study. The polarization was found to significantly affect the laser-induced temperature rise on the substrate surface. This is due to the different surface absorption for the beams with different polarization directions. The laser beam with p polarization can induce higher temperature rise than that with s polarization. If the substrate has a high imaginary value in the complex refractive index, the peak laser-induced surface temperature falls concurrently. A similar effect of polarization to the laser-induced surface temperature rise can be expected to all other absorbing materials.