Measurement of thermal effect in high-power laser irradiated liquid crystal device using digital holographic interferometry

We present an efficient tool to monitor the thermal effect of liquid crystal (LC) device under high-power laser irradiation by using digital holographic interferometry with the characteristics of non-contact, full field, and dynamic measurement. The holograms carrying the information of the thermal effect of LC device are recorded and reconstructed during the high-power laser irradiation with different powers, respectively, and the refractive index variations corresponding to thermal effect of LC device are quantitatively calculated. It is found that a ring boundary appears in the recorded hologram when the LC device irradiated by high-power laser with hundreds Watt and the ring changes over time due to the LC device’s thermal effect. Furthermore, the experiment results show more about the performance of the LC device working on high-power light irradiation conditions and provide useful reference for the design of related high-power LC devices.