Theoretical treatment for photothermal depth profile of subsurface defects in opaque solids

The deflection of a probe laser beam incident parallel to the surface of an irradiated target with a cylindrical hole inside it showed two maxima at the boundary of the hole. Theoretical treatment employing the integral Laplace transform technique to explain this behavior was developed using a superposition of temperature distributions arising from a real source inside the target and a virtual source above the target. (C) 2003 American Institute of Physics.