Radiation-pressure-induced surface deformation of transparent liquids due to laser beams under oblique incidence

Abstract

We consider the deformation of transparent liquid surfaces under the influence of radiation pressure generated from a gaussian laser beam with oblique incidence. It is seen that the beam intensity cross-section at the surface becomes elliptical, presenting a distinct behavior from the models with cylindrical symmetry previously adopted in the literature to describe experimental observations. Semi-analytical solutions to the equilibrium deformations in terms of Green’s functions are also presented. Based on these solutions, numerical simulations for an air–water interface were carried out, showing that in typical scenarios the modified beam intensity generates larger deformations as function of the incidence angle, with differences up to order of 10 nm, which should be observable by current experimental optical techniques. A proposal of such measurement employing a photo-induced mirror technique was also simulated, where it was seen that the expected experimental signal does present the sensitivity required to distinguish between the considered models.