Laser heating of optically thin samples

Summary A mathematical model able to describe the temperature profiles generated in a thin film by the steady-state illumination by a Gaussian laser beam is presented. The film is supposed to be made by a weakly absorbing liquid sample bounded by two parallel transparent plates, the cell walls, whose thermal exchange to the surrounding ambient may be assumed to be linear with the temperature difference. An analytical solution of the problem is presented in form of Hankel transform and a matrix numerical approach to the computation of the temperature profiles is reported. It is particularly well suited to a computer implementation and allows one to get very accurate results in very short computing times. The influence of the heat exchange coefficient to the ambient is shown in an example. A check of the method accuracy is performed by comparison with literature results in the particular case of infinite heat exchange coefficient. To speed up publication, the authors of this paper have agreed to not receive the proofs for correction.